Fangs or Claws
by Shadowzamy
Summary: Yoh and Horohoro have moved to a new home for reasons mostly unknown, but the neighborhood seems to have some a lot rumors about strange disappearances. Many questions will need to be answered if they hope to survive in this new place. Is someone a friend or a Foe? Life or Death? Fangs or Claws? HaoxYoh Vampire fic.
1. All stories have beginings

Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king.

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

"**dangeous tone"**

HaoxYoh

xXx

A small black car drove at about 65mph down the deserted highway. It was headed towards the edge of Kyoto where the family inside would be soon be moving to. The car suddenly made a sharp turn, waking the two passengers in the back seat. One of the passengers was Yoh Asakura, his parents were the ones driving, the other was Horokeu Usui, nicknamed Horohoro. Horohoro and Yoh were good friends and they were both going to the same school. Horohoro's parents had to stay in Hokkaido for reasons that only the Ainu's and the Asakura's knew about. During the school year Horohoro would be staying with Yoh and his family, it was arranged by their parents and nether of them had any complaints. Yoh looked around and it took him a moment to remember that they were in the car. Horohoro started talking about what to do once they arrived at the knew house while Yoh began to doze off. Horohoro noticed that Yoh was losing interest in the conversation quickly so he changed the subject to a more interesting matter.

"Hey, Yoh. Did you hear about the rumors about where we're living?" Horohoro asked with a big grin.

"It's Kyoto, what's there to tell?" Yoh asked groggily.

"Well, on the edge of Kyoto, where we'll be staying, it's said that people have been going missing." Horohoro said, successfully snapping Yoh back to awareness.

"Missing?" Yoh asked, confused yet wanting him to continue.

"That's right. They say that every so often someone goes missing but that's not what's strange. What's strange is that it only happens in the evening/night and that even if someone is found, they're ether dead or cant remember anything that happened while they were gone." Horohoro said, barely managing to stay in his seat as the car lurched to a stop.

"We're here." Keiko announced cheerfully.

"Come on boys, lets check out the knew house." Mikihisa said while following his wife inside.

It was a traditional style Japanese house, it had two floors and seven rooms in all. When you first walked into the house you would be entering the living room which had a television at the northern wall and a few tatami mats spread out across the floor. On the left was dining room, which was relatively empty except for the single table in the middle of the room. On the right was the kitchen which had a modern stove and fridge but a traditional style counter top. A little to the left of the TV in the living room was the door to the hallway. In the hallway were the doors to the two bedrooms with the bathroom door being between the two as well as the stairs at the far end of the hall which led to the attic. Mikihisa and Keiko would have the room on the left and surprisingly Yoh asked for the attic so Horohoro got the room on the right. After getting ready to got to sleep, Horohoro told Yoh a story about ghost spiders who were said to haunt the attics in the area. The story ended with the spiders kidnapping someone for their master, the blood stalker, to feed on. Horohoro told Yoh the story knowing full well how terrified of spiders he was. Yoh didn't seem to be bothered by the story though, after all, it was just something Horohoro made up to scare him. Yoh looked out his window and gazed at the stars for a while. By the sound of snoring that could be herd from downstairs, it wasn't hard to guess that everyone else was already asleep. Yoh figured that he might as well go to sleep too and was about to close his window when he saw the figure of someone standing in the middle of the street. Yoh looked a little closer and saw that their were actually two of them but he was alarmed to see that both figures were covered in blood. Yoh rubbed his eyes and quickly looked again, but the strange figures were gone. '_Heh heh, looks like Horohoro's story scared me more than I thought._' Yoh thought nervously, closing the window before quickly heading to bed. Meanwhile the strange figures watched the young Asakura from a distance. The first figure watched silently as the boy closed the curtains to go to bed.

"Looks like there are two new kids moving in, we were only expecting one." The second one said, turning to face the first.

"No matter. It will be much more amusing this way." The first one said with a smirk.

"They didn't look like they were related, but it will still be harder with two of them." The second one snapped.

"The harder it is the more entertaining it will be. Besides, it's not like you're going after _both_ of them." The first said, crossing his arms in defiance.

"But if _one_ of them disappears the whole family will panic." The second one growled.

"Not necessarily. You chose the blue haired one, if you take simply him then you wont have to worry about anything." The first replied simply.

"But if I take mine first then what will you do?" The second asked suspiciously.

"You've known me for a long time, you should know by now that I don't have a problem with waiting for something I want." The first one said calmly.

"Fine with me then." The second said, disappearing into the shadows.

The first one glanced back at the attic once more before fading into the night as well, the predatory look in his eyes made them appear glow in the night.

XxX

Yoh woke up early the next morning, much to his displeasure, and got ready to go to school. Today was their first day and it would be bad if they were late. Horohoro quickly ate breakfast and ran out the front door in a rush to get to school with Yoh walking behind him. Yoh lost sight of Horohoro after he took a wrong turn, only then did he realize that he too was lost. Yoh looked around for any sign of home or school but all that he could see was a buss stop a little further ahead. He walked over to the bus stop and waited for someone to come around. Soon a purple haired guy walked up to him. Noticing that he was obviously lost the guy told him which way the school was and started walking in that direction. The guy looked about his age so Yoh walked with him to the school. As he arrived and began walking through the halls, one of the teachers asked to speak with him. He followed the teacher to his office and sat down in a nearby chair. Before he could ask if he had done something wrong the teacher introduced himself.

"Hello. I am Silva Douji, your principal. I can guess what you might be thinking and no you are not in trouble or anything. I just prefer to meet all of my new students and welcome them to the school." Principal Silva informed.

"Ok." Yoh said simply.

"Here is your class schedule. You should probably hurry to class now, if you don't you'll be late." Principal Silva said while opening the door for Yoh.

Yoh thanked the principal and quickly left the office. He got lost in the hallways a few times but eventually he found the classroom. He managed to arrive just as the teacher finished explaining to the class that they would be having a new student. The teacher introduced herself as Mrs Shika before looking around the class for an empty desk for him. After scanning the room for any vacancies she noticed an empty desk next to one of her more troubling students. Unfortunately it was the only empty desk so she didn't really have much of a choice but to put Yoh there.

"Well I think I'll have you sit next to Ren. Ren, please raise your hand or your tongari to show Yoh where you are." Mrs Shika asked sweetly.

"It's just my hair!" Ren snapped, his tongari not helping his point by growing another two inches.

Yoh had to resist the urge to laugh as he walked over to the seat next to Ren. Recognizing him as the purple haired kid that showed him how to get to school, he passed a note that said thanks over to him. Mrs Shika ignored the note since it was Yoh's first day and began teaching the class. Yoh was surprised to find that Mrs Shika's class was actually interesting and he decided not to sleep through it for once. Yoh was never particularly fond of Foreign Languages but Mrs Shika actually made the class pretty fun. The lunch bell rang after what seemed like no time at all. All of the other students quickly rushed out of the room so that he and Ren were the only ones left. Yoh figured that it would probably be better for him to ignore the question that had been bugging him. Unfortunately his curiosity out-ruled his sense of reason this time.

"Hey Ren?" Yoh asked, trying to sound casual.

"What?" Ren replied.

"Your tongari, is it alive?" Yoh asked curiously.

*_Snap* _That was the sound of Ren's last strand of patience. Ren slowly reached into his bag and pulled out a full sized kwan-dao. Ren was obviously pissed-off and Mrs Shika simply held up a note that said 'run'. Yoh took a step back as Ren pointed the kwan-dao directly at him.

"**Kisama...**"

XxX

Me: Hope ya liked it, Please review.


	2. New friends and

Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king.

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

XxX

Yoh quickly hid in a broom closet in an attempt to escape Ren's rage. He listened carefully and waited until the sound of footsteps had disappeared before he let out a sigh of relief. He made a mental note not to tease Ren about his hair again unless he wanted to visit the spirit world sometime soon. Once Yoh was sure that Ren was gone, he left the safety of the broom closet. Yoh looked down the hall and since he didn't see Ren he decided that it was safe to go to the cafeteria. The minute he entered the cafeteria he was tackled by Horohoro, three guesses says that he wasn't having such a great first day. Horohoro sat down at a table next to him and started talking about his class. Horohoro's teacher was Mr Kame and he was very strict. Since he was late he never got to meet the principal and had to go straight to class. Horohoro said that he sat in front of a guy that looked a lot like Yoh, his name was Hao Douji. After hearing Hao's name Yoh told Horohoro that the principal's last name was Douji as well. The two of the guessed that the principal and Hao were probably related and went back to the previous discussion.

Once Horohoro was done complaining about his day, two guys walked over to them. The brunette, which Yoh assumed was probably Hao, asked if he could sit next to them. Yoh didn't mind but Horohoro obviously had a problem with it. He snapped at Hao calling him a lot of... unique, choice words. Surprisingly, Hao didn't seem fazed in the slightest by Horohoro's descriptive name calling. Yoh looked over at Ren, who was standing next to Hao, and mouthed 'What did he do?' Ren shook his head, basically saying 'I don't know.' Yoh eventually managed to calm Horohoro down, but by that point break was over. Luckily Horohoro and Hao weren't in the same classroom for this period. Horohoro was stuck with Ren in geography while Yoh was seated next to Hao for math. Yoh tried to stay awake for the class to see what about Hao could have pissed-off Horohoro so much, but math was really boring. Hao simply listened to the teacher and didn't do anything to disrupt the class. Yoh ended up falling asleep halfway through and only woke up once the bell rang to signal the next class.

Ren and Horohoro both had history while Yoh and Hao had gym class. As they walked to class Yoh decided to ask what Hao did to make Horohoro so mad. Hao laughed and explained the chain of events that led to Horohoro's outburst. When Horohoro first came to class Hao had set a prank which caused Horohoro to become the laughing stock of the entire class. That, along with constantly teasing him and throwing notes, eventually led to Horohoro's outburst during lunch. Yoh understood now why Horohoro was so mad, he wasn't exactly the patient type when it came to teasing. Today in class they would be playing games in teams of two, that also meant team warm ups. After hearing from other students Yoh learned that Hao was very competitive but he didn't have much stamina and he got sick a lot. Hao couldn't compete in any games that required much strength or speed but he was pretty good at strategy games. All in all Hao didn't seem that bad so Yoh teamed up with him for class. They would take turns with one of them doing stretches ad the other helping the first keep their balance. Hao was finishing his warm ups when he tripped. Yoh quickly grabbed his waist to stop him from falling, but Hao flinched as he caught him.

"Are you alright?" Yoh asked worriedly.

"I'm fine, I'm just a little sore there." Hao replied quickly.

"Oh, sorry." Yoh said apologetically.

"It's alright. It'll probably be healed by tomorrow." Hao said with reassuring smile.

Yoh frowned but decided to take Hao's word for it. They were playing tennis today and it was the two of them against two girls. The girls served the ball. The game lasted a lot longer than Yoh thought it would, mostly because of Hao. Despite the fact that Hao wasn't that fast he still managed to hit the ball a lot. The score was 6 – 9, if the girls scored the next point then they would win. During the times when they hit the ball between the teams a sharp piece of wire got caught in the fabric. It wasn't that big and no one noticed it as they were playing. The girls hit the ball onto Yoh's side of the field where Yoh, unfortunately, was not paying attention. The ball grazed his right cheek, a little below his eye, leaving a small cut where where the ball touched. Aside from the cut and being a little startled Yoh was alright so the girls won the game. When Yoh looked over at Hao though, he could tell that something was wrong. Hao was shivering as he looked at the cut on Yoh's cheek. Yoh walked over to ask Hao what was wrong but Hao's breathing seemed to get harder as he came closer.

"Is something wrong Hao?" Yoh asked concerned.

"I... have hemophobia." Hao stuttered while looking away, he looked fairly pale and like he was about to pass out.

"Oh." Yoh said as realization dawned over him.

One of the girls heard what Hao said and gave Yoh a medium sized band-aid for his cut. Once Yoh put on the band-aid and wiped off the rest of the blood Hao went back to his usual self. Yoh had his last class with Ren and then school would be over. In science class the teacher asked everyone to work in pairs and since he didn't exactly know anyone else, Ren was his partner. Yoh was a little worried that Ren would still be mad about earlier. Luckily Ren seemed to have forgotten all about it. For the entire class the only thing Ren talked about was Horohoro. Yoh couldn't help but wonder if Ren had a crush on Horohoro. By the end of class Yoh swore if he herd Ren say Horohoro's name again he'd go insane. On the bright side, at least he only had two classes with Ren in a day so he probably wouldn't deal with it again until tomorrow. As the final bell rang and everyone finished getting ready to leave Yoh looked around for Horohoro. When Yoh found him, the two of them started walking back home together. Yoh told Horohoro about how Ren showed him the way to school as they passed by the buss stop. They managed to make it home without getting lost and arrived just as Keiko had finished making dinner. Mikihisa came through the door just as they started eating.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" Mikihisa asked.

"You said you would be home late dear. I still have a plate ready for you though." Keiko replied as she grabbed another plate out of the cupboard.

Since Mikihisa now had a plate and had finished getting his food, he looked over at the two boys. "So how was your first day at your new school?"

"Mine was awful. I arrive 15 minutes late and get lectured by my teacher, he gave me extra homework before he even introduced himself! Not to mention that after I sit down I realize that someone put glue on my seat. The teacher called me to the blackboard to answer a question, but when I go to stand up my pants ripped. I was temporarily removed from class for 'being a disturbance to the students' and when he let me back inside the guy that sat behind me started throwing notes at my head. Later I learned that the name of that demon was Hao, the one who intends to make my life in school a living hell. The rest of my classes I spent with Ren, a guy with way too much pride and a short temper. Ren's a pretty cool dude though, once you get past his ego." Horohoro said as he ate another spoonful of rice.

"Horohoro, I think your exaggerating about Hao. I heard that Hao did glue your seat as a prank, but he was just throwing notes to warn you that the teacher was going to give you detention if you didn't pay attention. Hao isn't that bad. On another note, my day was ok. I arrived a little late but I made it to class just as the teacher finished explaining that there would be a new student. Her name is Mrs Shika and she is a really good teacher. I actually managed to stay awake during her class. I sat next to Ren, who also helped me find the school. At the end of class I made the mistake of asking Ren a question about his hair, which resulted in him pulling a full sized kwand-dao out of his bag and me hiding in a broom closet to escape. I spent most of my other classes with Hao and found that he likes taunting others but he's a pretty cool guy. During gym class I learned that Hao is fairly weak and tends to get sick a lot. He's great at strategy games but usually ends up sitting out during class. Hao and I were in a team playing against two girls. We were playing tennis and the girls ended up winning. During the game I got this cut on my cheek, I think Hao was more affected by it than I was. Hao has hemophobia and he looked like he was about to pass out when he saw my cut. That's how my first day of school went." Yoh explained.

"How did Ren pull a kwan-dao out of his bag? Can it even fit in there?" Keiko asked curiously.

"I don't know." You replied simply.

"Since we're all finished eating we should probably go to bed. Tomorrow's another day and we better be rested for it." Horohoro said as he left the table and headed towards his room.

"Good night." Yoh called while climbing the stairs to the attic.

Yoh climbed into bed and closed his eyes, within a few moments he, along with everyone else, was fast asleep.

XxX

Me: Please Review.


	3. Mysteries

Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king.

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

writing

xXx

Yoh woke up late the next day and had to rush in order to get to school in time. He quickly grabbed a piece of toast in the kitchen and Keiko yelled to use his alarm clock as he ran out the door. Horohoro left ahead of him, so he was alone as he ran towards the school. When he arrived the bell had just rang and by the time he had put his stuff in his locker he was already ten minutes late. He hoped that Mrs Shika wasn't harsh on late students, he really didn't need the extra homework. He walked into the room an took his seat. Right after he pulled out his textbook he learned that he didn't have to find out whether Mrs Shika would be harsh on him or not because she was late due to car problems. She arrived five minutes after Yoh and began teaching as though class had just started. As Yoh let out a sigh of relief for not being caught late, Ren passed a note that said 'You got lucky, normally she makes late students repeat all of yesterday's lesson.' After reading that he made a mental note not to be late to Mrs Shika's class again. He liked her class, but that doesn't mean that he completely memorized each of her lessons. To Yoh, the bell seemed to ring a little earlier than it did yesterday, but that was just because both he and the teacher were late. As he left class and headed toward the lunch hall he was stopped by Ren.

"Hey Yoh, do you know if Horohoro has anyone that he likes?" Ren asked somewhat casually.

"As far as I know there isn't anyone that he likes. I know that he's started to hate Hao a little less, but that's mostly because of my lecturing and I don't think that's what your talking about." Yoh said with a smile.

"Yea..." Ren said, quickly heading to the cafeteria before Yoh could ask why.

Yoh was near certain that Ren did have a crush on Horohoro and he wondered if Horohoro would like Ren back. Deciding that now wasn't exactly the time to think about this, Yoh walked into the cafeteria where Horohoro, Ren, and Hao were waiting. Yoh took a seat next to Hao and ate his lunch quietly as everyone else talked about recent school rumors. Most of the rumors were about who's dating who and which idiot decided to mess with Mrs Shika's car. Yoh only became interested in the conversation when Hao mentioned something about mysteries of the school. Before he could ask Hao about it, the bell rang to signal their next class. Yoh fell asleep shortly after the teacher started talking and was woken up by Hao after the bell rang.

The next few classes went pretty much the same way until one of the teachers threatened to have him suspended if he didn't stay awake for the remainder of the class. The teacher in question was Mr Kame and Yoh was beginning to understand why Horohoro said he was harsh. Mr Kame's class was also one of the few classes he had without Hao. If he got suspended on only his second day of school, his parents be furious. It took him a lot of effort but he managed to stay awake until the bell rang to signal gym class. Today they were playing basket ball and because of a previous unfortunate incident, which no one really talked about, Hao had to sit out. While sitting on the bench Hao read a book about a horror story, he had heard about it from another student. When the murder scene came up he quickly closed the book and turned his attention to the game. Yoh managed to score two shots but in the end his team lost the game. The scores were close but there was this one girl that was really quick, she scored the winning shot with hardly any effort. There was still a few minutes left in class so the teacher gave them all free time until the bell rang. The girls started playing a short game of tag while the boys went back to the changing room. As Yoh was changing his shirt he remembered the earlier conversation during lunch.

"Hey Hao, earlier you mentioned something about mysteries of the school. What was that about?" Yoh asked curiously.

"Ah, that. There's three strange rumors surrounding the school currently. I was going to ask if You and Horohoro wanted to stay back a little late to investigate them with Ren and I. A few girls will be coming too." Hao explained.

"Sure. See you guys after class then." Yoh replied, noticing that the bell had just rang.

Yoh quickly headed to science where he hoped that Ren wouldn't talk about Horohoro the entire time. Luckily it seemed as though the great spirit had granted his wish. Ren was pretty quiet during class, excluding the time when he yelled at Yoh for almost blowing up the classroom. Yoh had been dozing off and was about to mix two chemicals that really didn't go well together. The teacher looked about ready to pass out when he saw which chemicals Yoh was holding. Everyone thanked Ren for stopping him and continued the rest of class like normal. When the bell finally rang everyone rushed out of the room leaving Yoh and Ren as the last ones to leave. Before they went to go meet up with Horohoro and Hao, Yoh called home to let his mom know that they would be a little late coming back. Keiko didn't seem bothered and simply told him to be back by ten o-clock. Once Yoh got off the phone he and Ren walked over to the gym where everyone was waiting. Horohoro was talking to the two girls and Hao looked like he really wanted to leave.

"I'm glad you two are finally here. I swear if I had to hear him tell another story to those girls I would've gone insane." Hao said, glaring in Horohoro's direction.

"Ha ha, sorry we're late. What are the rumors that we're going to look in to?" Yoh asked curiously.

"The first rumor is the ghost haunting the girls changing room, the second is the screaming classroom, and the third is the vampire appears on the roof every night after dark." Hao explained.

While they listened to Hao's instructions on what to do everyone got out their flashlights. The two girls brought cross necklaces in case the vampire rumor was true. One of the girls was having a little trouble putting her necklace on so Hao offered to put it on for her. She put the necklace in his hand and he carefully put it on her. Once everyone was ready, they headed to the girls changing room where the ghosts were supposed to be. The actual rumor began when some of girls had been hearing strange voices when no one was talking so people thought it was a ghost. The girls checked the top of the lockers while the guys looked around the room. After a little searching Horohoro found what he thought might be the cause of the voices. He called everyone over to show what he found. One of the lockers had been a little crooked and when he when he opened it he found that inside was a secret door. The girls were furious at the thought of who might have been in there earlier and began plotting on how to catch the person.

The six of them continued on to the second place where the rumor of the screaming classroom started. It was Mr Kame's class so when one student herd the screaming they assumed that someone was being tortured. All of them sat down at a desk and waited for the screaming to start. Ten minutes passed without so much as a sound and they were getting ready to leave when everyone herd this this crying sound. They all began searching the room for what could be the source. They looked everywhere and eventually one of the girls noticed that the closet door had a light on. She peaked inside and let out a squeak once she realized what she saw. When the others noticed her flustered expression they looked inside and a bright blush spread across all of their faces. Inside the room was and intense make-out scene between Mr Kame and Mrs Shika. Mr Kame herd the squeak and opened the door, noticing the flustered expressions on each of their faces he could only assume what they saw. He apologized to the students and made sure they were gone before closing and locking the classroom door.

"...Well I have to say I wasn't expecting that." Horohoro muttered as they walked to the roof to investigate the final rumor.

Once they reached the roof Ren noticed someone standing near the edge. They walked a little closer and recognized the person as principal Silva. He was dressed in a black cape and wore a pair of fake fangs. When they were close enough for him to notice them, one of the girls asked why he was dressed as a vampire. Principal Silva explained that one of his favorite things when he was younger was participating in plays he was currently acting out the story of Dracula. Having uncovered the mysteries behind all of the rumors the everyone started heading home. Ren offered to walk the girls home and they were the first to leave. Not wanting to miss out, Horohoro ran after them. Hao said goodbye to Yoh and headed home as well.

Since Horohoro ran ahead Yoh walked home alone. It was past ten o-clock out by the time he got home, he got lost several times on the way and by the time he actually arrived at the house it was a little after midnight. When Yoh opened the door to announce that he was home, his mother instantly caught him in a crushing hug. Yoh quickly explained that he got lost and that was why he wasn't home sooner. He wondered why she was so worried, he had been late before. After he managed to get her to stop crying she finally told him what was worrying her. There had been a news cast on the television saying that three people from around the area were found dead earlier that evening. Not only that but Horohoro still hadn't come back. His dad had gone out looking for the two of them an hour ago. Yoh asked if he could go look for Horohoro too but his mom refused. Honestly, he had expected that answer, but it didn't hurt to ask.

Now that Keiko had gotten over her little moment she was now assuring him that Mikihisa would bring Horohoro back by tomorrow morning. It was late and Yoh decided to just go to sleep and hope that tomorrow everything would be back to normal. Yoh left his window open so that the cold air could come in. Then he went over to his bed and fell asleep. Keiko looked up towards Yoh's room considering weather or not to make him stay home tomorrow. When she told him what had happened earlier she lied about something. Mikihisa never came home ether. The only reason why Horohoro would be out at this hour without saying why would be if someone had taken him. By tomorrow morning Horohoro would probably escape from wherever he was. It would take someone pretty strong to keep him from leaving for very long. Unfortunately she couldn't say the same for Yoh. Yoh wasn't the strongest shaman, more like he barely knew how to form an oversoul. If Yoh got caught, Keiko wasn't so sure that he would be alright.

XxX

Me: On to write the next chapter.

Ren: Please review.


	4. Who knows

Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king.

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

writing

XxX

When Yoh opened his eyes the next morning, he felt somewhat uneasy. He tried to shake it off as he walked downstairs, but returned when noticed how quiet the house was. Horohoro was fairly loud in the morning and with him gone, the house wasn't so noisy. He stopped walking right before he entered the kitchen. He could hear his mother talking to someone, judging by the fact that he didn't hear anyone else, he figured that she was probably on the phone.

Her manner of speaking suggested that the person on the other line was Lycan, Horohoro's father. She told him that Horohoro had gone missing and Mikihisa never came home from work yesterday. She almost started to cry as expressed her fear that Yoh might be next. Mr Usui seemed to suggest something that calmed her down because after she got off the phone, she didn't look as worried. Once he was ready to head out the door, Keiko stopped him.

"Yoh, when you come back home from school today I want you to have a friend walk you home, alright?" Keiko asked, her gaze shifting to the door for a moment before returning to him.

Yoh nodded silently before heading to school. He learned the way to the school after getting lost yesterday and actually arrived on time. Except for Mrs Shika's class, he fell asleep through the other three classes. When Yoh looked up he found Hao staring at him with an strange expression. Yoh wasn't sure what it was about, but he didn't have much time to think about it. A moment later the expression was gone and Hao was lecturing him about falling asleep in class.

Yoh smiled and blocked out the sound as he recalled the expression. What could it have meant? Hao snapped his fingers, turning Yoh's attention back to him. Hao muttered something along the lines of 'you're hopeless' and then walked to the cafeteria. Hao finished eating quickly and then headed to the principal's office, leaving Yoh to talk to Ren.

"How come Bakahoro isn't at school today?" Ren asked, attempting to hide his concern.

"Well, he never came home from school yesterday. He's been missing ever since then." Yoh replied slowly.

"!" Ren was completely silent, but his tongari grew about twelve centimeters to show how shocked he was.

"My mom doesn't want me walking home alone now. Would you walk home with me today?" Yoh asked sheepishly.

"Sorry, I can't. My sister brought over a friend last night and I have to explain the rules of the house to him as well as how to treat her." Ren said simply.

"New boyfriend?" Yoh asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Close enough." Ren replied with a smile.

Hao came back shortly after lunch break ended. They were playing dodge ball in gym class today and by the competitive look in Hao's eyes, Yoh had the feeling that he didn't want to get hit by one of those balls. It's not as though Hao was particularly strong, it's just that getting tit by one of those balls probably wouldn't feel that great. Today was a free for all, no teams, everyone against everyone.

There were ten balls, 25 students and almost everyone wanting to get Hao and his friends out, leaving little chance of Yoh not getting hit. though Hao didn't have much stamina, there had been no 'troublesome incidences' in the past and he was allowed to play. The teacher blew the whistle and then everyone lunged for the balls.

Yoh jumped out of the way when a ball came headed straight for his head. He quickly looked around to see how well Hao was doing and was relieved when he saw that nothing was wrong. Hao seemed to be having a little trouble with dodging but he was great at catching the balls that came within range. Hao was also a great shot, whenever he aimed a ball for someone, it never missed it's target.

Yoh guessed that skill, strategy and accuracy made up for the lack in strength, agility and stamina. Soon there were only five students left in the game, himself and Hao included. Yoh threw a ball and ended up hitting two of the other students with it, his first lucky shot all game. Hao caught the ball that the other student threw at him leaving only Yoh and himself left in the game.

Yoh jumped out of the way as Hao threw his ball first . What Yoh wasn't expecting was that Hao actually had two balls. While Yoh was distracted in dodging the first ball Hao threw the second ball, which didn't miss it's target, and won the game.

As the bell rang signaling the end of school, Yoh began to get worried. Ren couldn't go home with him and Hao lived on the other side of town, it would probably be too far off track for him to walk home with him. Yoh walked outside and felt a drop of water hit his nose, he looked up and saw it was raining. Yoh sighed as he watched all of the other students walk home. Yoh let the rain soak him until, strangely, it stopped. Yoh looked beside him and saw Hao standing over him with an umbrella.

"How come your not headed home like the rest of them?" Hao asked, trying not to sound too concerned.

"My mom doesn't want me to go home alone and Ren is busy." Yoh answered simply.

"Is it because of all the recent disappearances?" Hao asked calmly.

"Yes and no. Horohoro is one of the people who went missing. My mom is worried that I might be next." Yoh replied with a sigh.

"Then how about this? My dad is worried about me because I'm not exactly the strongest kid, he's probably right to be, and your mom's worried because your friend went missing. How about we take turns going to each others houses? Since it would be dangerous for either of us to go back to our own home alone, we could spend the night at the others house. We would switch every other day and that way neither of us would be alone." Hao suggested.

"Ok. Fine with me." Yoh said with a care free smile.

The two of them walked back to his house in not much time at all. When they arrived, Yoh's mom ran to the door and gave him a big hug, almost like she was worried that he wouldn't come back. Keiko noticed Hao's presence and said a friendly hello to him while giving Yoh a questioning look. Yoh sat down and explained the idea that Hao came up, Keiko face lit up instantly upon hearing the proposition. She told him that had been worried, she had to leave to talk to Horohoro's parents and unfortunately she couldn't bring him with.

She talked with Hao for a few minutes about various subjects. Yoh couldn't help but think that the way they spoke reminded him of a mother-in-law talking to the groom about the bride. He snapped out of his thoughts when the conversation appeared to be over, Keiko seemed to have decided that Hao was trust worthy. She turned back to face him and apologized about having to leave so soon, she gave him a kiss on the forehead and rushed out the door. The two of them waved goodbye as she drove away.

Yoh smiled as he turned back to Hao, offering to give him a tour of the house. He warned him that his parents room was off limits and that there were a few stray dogs in the area. Since his parents room as off limits and Horohoro's room was too messy for you to be able to see anything, especially the floor, it was decided that Hao would sleep in the attic with Yoh.

After they finished the tour and finished eating dinner, which was left on the table, they started talking. Yoh really liked talking to Hao about supernatural things. Surprisingly, Hao knew a lot of scary stories, even more than Horohoro. They stayed up pretty late trading stories about ghosts and demons.

"Hey, Yoh. Do you believe in such things as ghosts, demons, and monsters?" Hao asked with a friendly smile.

"Yea, I do." Yoh said thoughtfully. Hao seemed like the trustworthy type, maybe it would be alright to tell him.

"Hao, do you promise not to think that I'm crazy?" Yoh asked cautiously.

"No, but I won't start avoiding you if I think that you are." Hao said teasingly.

"Well, truth is that I'm as shaman." Yoh said sheepishly.

"...You were worried that I'd overreact to something like that? Personally I'm not a shaman, but I can see spirits. Was Horohoro a shaman too?" Hao asked with a curious expression.

"No..." Yoh replied hesitantly.

"Oh, he seemed a little weird to me so I thought that he might be-" Hao began.

"...He's a werewolf."

XxX

Me: Sorry it took so long to update, here's the next chapter ^^

Keiko: Please review.


	5. Maybe

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

writing

XxX

That got the reaction that Yoh was expecting. Hao's eyes widened and he took a step back before looking up at Yoh in complete surprise. He had already assumed that Yoh was a shaman but he didn't expect, in the slightest, to be told that Horohoro was a werewolf. After Hao got over the shock Yoh explained why Horohoro had been staying with them.

He told him that there was a war going on with vampires and werewolves, one that had been for the past 10,000 years. Since Horohoro was the head she-wolf's brother, they wanted him away from the fighting in case something happened to happen to her. Because Horohoro had gone missing, Keiko had to fly back to Hokkaido to tell them all of what she learned for the few days that she was here.

Shaman's were usually neutral in fights, except when one side has a special link to a strong shaman clan. After the story was over, Hao seemed to stare into space for a little while, probably trying to sort a few things out.

Yoh figured that it was probably time for them to go to bed, that was a lot of information for a normal person to take in. Yoh pulled out the other futon for Hao to sleep on. Hao paused and then asked if he could leave the room for a moment, he apologized and explained that he forgot to call his parents. Yoh merely shrugged and crawled into bed while Hao went into the living-room to call his dad.

After Silva picked up the phone, Hao talked with him for a bit before hanging up. When he got off the phone with Silva, he called Ren to chat. Once he was done chatting, he hung up and walked back upstairs. Yoh was listening to his music, completely unaware of his surroundings. Hao walked over to his bed and closed his eyes, a little bit later Yoh removed his headphones and went to bed.

XxX

Yoh woke up to the smell of food cooking coming from down stairs. He looked at the empty bed next to his and figured that Hao was probably the one cooking. He slowly got out of bed and started getting dressed, he went into the bathroom to go brush his teeth, but froze when something in the mirror caught his attention. Yoh went downstairs and walked into the kitchen. Hao had just finished making eggs and bacon. Yoh stood at the doorway with his arms crossed and waited until Hao finished setting down the plates.

"Hey, Hao." Yoh greeted.

"Morning, Yoh." Hao said as he took a step away from the table.

"Are you gay?" Yoh asked suddenly.

Hao almost fell over from the shock of the question. "What makes you ask that?" Hao asked while trying to regain his balance.

Yoh pulled the collar of his shirt down slightly so that a small hickey could be seen on the side of his neck. Hao blushed and found himself unable to respond.

"I don't care if you are and I won't think any differently of you, but please don't do anything to me while I'm asleep." Yoh said as he sat down to eat.

"Ok... To answer your question, no, I am not gay. I'm bi." Hao said before taking a bite of his eggs.

When they were finished eating, they acted as though nothing had happened and went back to their normal conversations. Yoh was the first to leave the house and Hao quickly followed him out the door. They arrived at school mere seconds before the bell rang and got to their classes five minutes late.

During the middle of class, the principal made an announcement over the intercom stating that three students had been found dead this morning. It was strongly suggested that students now walk home in pairs of two or more. Once he finished speaking the teacher resumed the lesson as though nothing had happened. When lunch came, Yoh went outside to eat while Hao chose to sit next to the sulking Ren.

Yoh finished eating quickly and then tried to locate Horohoro's spiritual energy. No luck. The bell rang much sooner than he would've liked and he reluctantly got up and walked to class. Most of the other classes passed quickly, time flies when you're asleep, soon it was time for gym class. Today they were running track, luckily the class didn't seem to last that long. Yoh wasn't that fast, but he wasn't exactly slow either. Hao on the other hand, was second to last.

By the time that school was over both of them looked completely worn out. Hao's house was a few blocks away from the school and unfortunately Silva went home early to check reports. The two of them decided to take a shortcut though the park so that they could make it there in half the time. Hao talked about the many ways that he loathed their gym class teacher as they walked. Yoh laughed when Hao began imitating the teachers tone.

When they exited the park, they both froze in sheer horror at the sight before them. Standing in front of them was a man drenched in blood, biting the neck of a kid. '_Vampire?_' They both thought as the man looked over at the two of them, he grinned. Hao shivered at the sight of the blood while Yoh tried desperately to think of something to do. The kid was already dead by the looks of it, but the vampire still looked hungry.

A few other vampires came out of the shadows, soon the two of them were out numbered and out matched. There were five vampires in total and all of them looked strong. Hao seemed to snap out of it first and pulled Yoh back seconds before the first vampire lunged at him. Yoh tried to fight but, as it was mentioned before, they were outnumbered _and_ outmatched.

One of the vampires managed to grab Hao and threatened to bite him if they both didn't stop struggling. Hao ignored the threat and kept struggling, but Yoh went completely still. After that, one of the other vampires quickly took advantage of the situation and knocked Yoh out. The vampire holding Hao tightened his hold on Hao's neck, until he eventually lost consciousness.

After making sure that neither of them would wake up for a while, the vampires carried the two of them to their castle. Once they arrived, they gave the teens to a female vampire before returning to hunt. The female vampire dragged the two teens over to a room and threw them both inside. She made a few adjustments inside before leaving and locking the door behind her.

She knew it would be a while before the two woke up and she wasn't asked to guard them, so she went on with her other tasks. She walked around the castle until she eventually found the room that she was looking for. '_Sometimes the size of this castle can be really annoying. Why does it have to be so big anyway?_' She thought as she opened the door to the room. She dodged the plate that was thrown at her and turned her attention to the boy who threw it.

"I wish you would stop doing that, you're ruining perfectly good plates." She said with a sigh.

"If you'd let me out of here then I wouldn't be breaking your plates now would I?" Horohoro snapped, tugging at the chain around his neck.

"If you told us why you smell so much like the higher class werewolves, then we might be able to take off that chain for you." She said with a smile.

"Like hell I will." Horohoro growled.

"Hm, we ruled out the possibility of you being a spy since you're obviously weren't interested in finding our not-so-little castle. We could just kill you, but we'd prefer to know what you are first." She said as she played with the key to his chain.

"You'll have to kill me before I say anything." Horohoro said with a glare.

"I already told you, that just wont do. We could always kill your friend instead though. His name was Yoh, wasn't it?He was brought her just moments ago along with another boy that looked like him. If you absolutely wont tell us, then I guess we'll just make them our next meal." She replied simply.

Horohoro's face paled and it was obvious that he was trying to hide his fear. "Yoh wouldn't be caught that easily."

"Oh? You're forgetting I said that there were two of them. The other one's name was Hao, I think. Hao was caught first and we threatened to kill him if they both of them didn't stop fighting. After that, they were knocked out and brought here." She said, showing him Yoh's headphones as proof.

"...Fine, I'll tell. Just don't hurt them." Horohoro said in defeat.

"Good, now I'll ask again. Who are you?" She asked.

"Usui Horokeu, brother of the queen werewolf Pirika and prince of werewolves."

XxX

Me: This chapter didn't quite turn out like I expected it to.

Ren: Is that good or bad?

Me: Not sure yet.

Ren: Please review


	6. There will be

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_' _or emphasis_

"talk"

writing

_XxX_

Amidamaru was completely shocked. When he happened to bump into the female vampire earlier that day, he put a listening device on her in hopes of hearing their strategy for winning the war. He wasn't expecting to hear that they had caught Horohoro on accident, much less that they would catch Yoh and some innocent kid for the sole purpose of learning information from him.

He knew that he had to find Mikihisa quickly and return to the queen to tell her what he had learned. He switched from his human form and turned into a wolf as he began searching for Mikihisa's scent. He caught the scent near Yoh's school. It was really late out and the school was now closed, no need to worry about some random person accidentally seeing him.

He jumped in an open window and started sniffing around. As he searched, he heard the sound of rustling coming from downstairs. He slowly walked through the hallways and stopped in front of the office door that the sound was coming from. In case it was some else, he acted like a lost dog and barked at the door. In a moment the door opened and Mikihisa looked at him with a smile, but his face darkened when he noticed that Amidamaru's expression.

If Amidamaru told Mikihisa what he had just overheard, he would probably go off to search for Yoh, Horohoro, and Hao without thinking first. They needed the others help if they were going to find and rescue them. He wanted Yoh back just as much Mikihisa would, but he also knew the importance of planning. He decided to wait to tell Mikihisa what he heard until after they were back at the camp.

"I heard from Keiko that you were missing. Why are you here?" Amidamaru asked calmly.

"Pirika's father asked me to check on the status of the teachers at the school and I'm guessing that he forgot tell the others about it." Mikihisa replied.

"I think that can wait, something happened and we need to get back to camp, **now**." Amidamaru said, running out the door before Mikihisa could ask why.

Mikihisa ran after Amidamaru and only managed to catch up to him once he stopped at the base of the forest where he had parked his car. The two of them quickly got inside and drove towards the direction of the camp.

XxX

Hao woke up first and began looking around. Yoh was lying next to him and it looked like they were the only people in the room. The room was cold and dark but not so dark that one couldn't see. The walls were decorated with chains and splattered with blood. The smell of death was over whelming, yet there wasn't a single spirit around.

The only other things in the room were bones scattered across the floor, a bed with violet sheets, a barred window that looked strong enough to withstand the strongest of beasts, and a simple wooden nightstand. Hao could tell that he was starting to get dizzy from the sight of the blood. He wondered whether or not to wake Yoh, but before he could decide, Yoh began to wake up on his own.

The first thing Yoh noticed was the smell, but when he opened his eyes, he remembered just what kind of situation they were in. The vampire's had kidnapped them on their way to Hao's house. What could the vampires want? Yoh wasn't sure and no matter how hard he thought about it he couldn't figure out why. He looked at Hao and was a little confused when he saw him trembling.

Then he remembered the walls and the smell, Hao was hemophobic, being in a room with so much blood was probably terrifying for him. He looked like he was trying his hardest not to faint. Yoh carefully wrapped his arms around Hao and pulled him closer. Hao was shivering, whether it was from the cold or fear, Yoh couldn't tell.

"Don't worry, everything will work out. We'll get out of here soon." Yoh whispered softly.

Yoh tried to give him a reassuring smile without showing how much he doubted his own words. He had almost forgotten, until recently, Hao probably thought that vampires and werewolves were just myths. It was probably a lot harder for him than what he was letting on. Yoh continued to hold him close as an attempt to comfort him.

A few moments later, a female vampire came in the room with a tray of food. Shhe smiled upon noticing that the two of them were obviously awake. She placed the food on the nightstand and turned her attention to the two boys, ignoring the glares given to her by both of them.

"Hello. I hope you've enjoyed your time here so far. I'm sure that you two have at least a few questions you want answered by now. It's fine if you do, I have a few questions for the two of you too." She said while taking a seat on the bed.

"Why are we here?" Yoh asked calmly.

"You're a bargaining chip. As long as you two stay here, we know that your werewolf friend will cooperate with us, for the most part anyway. We told him that if he doesn't answer our questions, you two will become our next meal. As long as he cooperates, you two won't be harmed." She replied with a slight giggle.

"Vampires aren't exactly the type that will keep their promises, how do we know that you won't kill us anyway?" Yoh asked, holding Hao a little closer as he spoke.

"Because if we wanted to we could have done so already. All we _had_ to do was show the werewolf prince that we had you. We could have easily killed you after, but we _chose_ not to." She said in a low tone.

"Will you ever let us leave?" Yoh asked as he looked at her with a confused expression.

"Hm, I wonder." She said with a smile.

After that, she walked out the door and left the two of them even more confused than when she entered. Yoh looked down at Hao and was relieved to see that he had finally stopped shaking. He felt a little cold, but other than that, he seemed alright. Yoh looked around the room once more, this time he was looking for something to help them get out. The only entrances appeared to be the window, which was barred and looked impossible for normal people to get through, and the door, which was locked.

Yoh slowly stood up and started walking around the room, Hao following right behind him. They found another door, which led to a bathroom, but other than that, there wasn't anything else in the room. Yoh knew that both he and Hao weren't that strong, Hao was a little less than him, and neither of them stood a chance if they tried fighting their way out. All they could do was wait until someone came for them.

XxX

Mikihisa woke Amidamaru as they entered the camp, they drove through the night and arrived much faster than expected. Amidamaru jumped out of the car and ran directly towards the queen wolf's den, he managed to explain everything that he saw and heard before Mikihisa came over. Keiko spotted Mikihisa and instantly walked over to him, she looked pissed-off.

She yelled at him about how worried she was while he tried, and failed, at making an excuse for neglecting to tell her. Pirika ignored their argument and walked to the middle of the camp. She whistled for everyone to gather and then waited for everyone to come. Keiko stopped yelling and they headed over to where everyone was gathering.

"Listen up! Yoh and my brother have been captured by the vampires along with one of their school friends. I want Meene, Lilirara, and Venstar to go to their hide out and rescue the three of them before it's too late. Amidamaru told us that they are using Yoh and the other boy, Hao, to make sure Horohoro cooperates. This will be solely a rescue mission, don't push it by trying to do some damage while you're there. Do you agree with this Jeanne?" Pirika asked as she turned to face the white wolf.

"You are the queen Pirika, I am one of your generals. I see no problem with your plan so I have no objections." Jeannne replied simply.

Pirika nodded and the three of them quickly took off towards the castle. Venstar carried Lilirara on his back as they ran. Lilirara was a shaman that was very good at casting spells and breaking barriers but she still wasn't a werewolf and if they wanted to get to the castle quickly, someone had to carry her. Meene was fast and good at distractions while Venstar was strong and could carry pretty much anything that was under 136.1 kg. Despite the fact that they were running at top speed, it would still take a little while to get there. They hoped that the kids would stay safe until they arrived.

XxX

Ren: Why have you been using me in the authors notes lately?

Me: No real reason, everyone else is just busy in other stories.

Ren: And I'm not?

Me: Not really.

Ren: …

Me: Please review.


	7. Betrayal

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

writing

XxX

Yoh and Hao looked up when they heard the door to the room creak open. The female vampire from before walked into the room and headed right over to where the two of them were. She stared at them for a minute with a perplexed expression before giving them a smile. Grabbing each of them by the wrists, she pulled them to their feet and walked back out the door, dragging the two of them behind her.

Despite both of their hardest efforts to pull free, she didn't even appear to be breaking a sweat. Eventually they reached a black and white door where the vampiress stopped walking. She let go of Yoh and took a key out of her pocket. Yoh simply remained still as she unlocked the door. It wasn't because he didn't want to get away, it was because there were two reasons that made him stay.

She was still holding Hao, and she could easily catch up to him if he tried to run. The door clicked unlocked and she swung it open. Yoh was a little startled as she grabbed hold of his hand and pulled the them into the room. She threw both Yoh and Hao onto the bed before walking back to the door.

"We needed the other room for something else, you two will be staying here for a while until we decide on a more permanent change." She said as she left the room, locking the door behind her.

The two of them looked at each other in surprise before looking at the rest of the room. The walls and floor of the room were a dark violet with the ceiling being a stormy grey. The blankets and sheets of the bed were blue and there was a nightstand like the one in the previous room standing next to the bed. There was a door which led to a bathroom but nothing else. There were no windows in the room but there were no blood stains either.

"Well that was unexpected." Hao said as he noticed two apples on the nightstand.

"I'm just glad you're feeling better now." Yoh said simply.

Hao smiled and threw one of the apples to Yoh. Neither one of them had eaten anything since they arrived and they couldn't force themselves to eat while in the other room. Once they had finished eating the apples they started looking for a possible way out. The door was locked and since there were no windows, the possibility of escape seemed pretty slim. The door itself looked pretty durable and it looked strong enough to be able to withstand anything that a human could try. After an hour of searching, it was pretty obvious that they couldn't break out alone.

"Hey, Yoh. Back when we were in the other room, thanks for trying to calm me down." Hao said hesitantly.

"No problem. We're friends, right?" Yoh with a carefree smile.

Hao looked like he was about to respond, but paused for a moment and looked towards the door instead. Yoh was a little confused at first but then he heard it too, footsteps. The door handle jiggled for a second and then talking could be heard from the other side of the door. Yoh and Hao could guess what was going to happen next and moved out of the way before it happened. Right after they moved out of the way someone kicked down the door with a large amount of force. A woman and two wolves came in the room.

"My name is Venstar, the shaman is Lilirara and the other werewolf is Meene. We are here under orders to rescue the two of you and Horohoro. Please get on so that we can rescue Horohoro and get out of here quickly." Venstar said as he leaned down for them to hop on.

Yoh ran over and jumped on Venstar's back without a second thought, but it took five minutes to convince Hao to get on. Once both of them were safely secure and holding onto his fur so that they wouldn't fall off, Venstar followed Meene and Lilirara out the door. Lilirara preformed an incantation to hide their presence as they ran and Meene kept an ear out for any vampires.

They stopped at the entrance to the room where Yoh sensed Horohoro's presence. Meene tore the hinges off the door and Venstar rammed it, which broke it instead of knocking it over. Meene and Lilirara both rushed inside and tried to unlock the chains, but with no luck. Soon the alarm in the building sounded and the sound of many footsteps could be heard close by. Meene managed to pick the lock on Horohoro's chains right as a group of vampires entered the room.

"Like hell we're letting you three escape! Recapture the kids and kill the others!" One of the vampires screeched.

"Dude, I'm not a kid." Horohoro said as he switched into his wolf form.

Horohoro jumped through the window, breaking past the rusty bars, and fled the castle with Venstar and Meene following right behind him. Lilirara cast a spell to distract them before any of them tried to attack those who weren't able to fight. Yoh and Hao held on tightly to Venstar's fur so that they wouldn't fall of, it wouldn't end well if they were accidentally left behind.

They ran for another hour before they finally lost sight of the vampires chasing them. Once they could no longer smell them nearby, they stopped for a short rest. Hao started playing fetch with Horohoro, who got mad once he realized he was being treated like a dog. Hao climbed up into a tree and laughed at Horohoro's failed attempts to bite him. Horohoro kept trying to jump up to the branch that Hao was sitting on, but it was just out of reach, and he ended up falling back down every time.

It took a little while, but eventually Horohoro calmed down and Hao jumped down off of the tree branch. Yoh had been sitting at the base of the tree the whole time, he didn't move because he was worried that Horohoro or Hao might fall on him. Now that the little game of chase was over between them, he figured that it was safe to get up. Horohoro switched back to his human form, since he didn't have to run at the moment, and turned to face Hao, who seemed to have something to ask him.

"Is it really true that you're the werewolf prince?" Hao asked with mild curiosity.

"That's right. Pirika is two years younger than me but she's more suited to be the leader of the pack. Since we're at war with the vampires, the one who's best suited is always chosen." Horohoro replied simply.

"Hey Horohoro, I've always wondered. Do the vampires have a leader too?" Yoh asked as he walked over to the two of them.

"I don't know. Even if they do have someone in charge, they've never showed themselves before. The war has been going on for 900 years, but all we've ever heard about them having a leader are mere rumors." Horohoro replied with a shrug.

The conversation was abruptly ended when an ear splitting scream tore though the air. The screaming sounded close and it seemed to be getting louder and louder. They all looked around for the course of the noise, but before anyone could figure out where it was coming from, it stopped. Venstar and Meene got up and instantly ran over to where everyone else was.

The smell of blood started to fill the air and only then did one of them notice that Lilirara was missing. Venstar and Meene knew that it was already too late to save Lillirara, the blood had her scent. Venstar tried to push Yoh and Hao forward while Meene pulled Horohoro, but before they even had the chance to run, they were completely surrounded.

"Leaving so soon? I think not." The vampiress said as she stepped out from within the crowd.

"Where is Lilirara? Are you going to use her for a hostage or did you kill her already?" Meene asked calmly.

"She's dead. There is no need for hostages." The vamiress replied as she took a few steps forward.

"If that is true, then why are you still so intent on recapturing these three?" Meene asked while keeping eye contact with the vampiress.

The Vampiress seemed genuinely surprised by this question and it took her a few moments to respond. "They are not hostages, we never intended for them to be. We never planed on letting them go from the start. Unlike the werewolves, us vampires don't really care about this war. I caught Horohoro because someone precious requested it and Yoh was caught because someone else had interest in him. Hao was not one of our original targets, we merely caught him because he was with Yoh. We thought it would be funny to act like Yoh was a hostage, when in reality, none of us ever would have hurt him. We all fear what might happen to us if we do."

"What do you mean?" Horohoro demanded.

"We already knew from the start that you were the werewolf prince, but the only reason that it matters to us is that it will be more interesting since you are. As for the reason why none of us would harm Yoh, as I said before, someone has interest in him. The one who does would probably kill us if we hurt him more than what's necessary to bring him back." The vampiress replied simply.

"We were ordered to bring them back to _our_ camp and the only way the I see that happening is if I kill you now." Venstar barked before lunging at the vampiress.

Horohoro and Meene charged after him and the soon the once quiet field had become an all out battlefield. Despite the fact that they were greatly outnumbered, the werewolves were putting up a good fight. Meene had managed to take down two of them at once and Horohoro was fighting five of them alone. Venstar kept trying to get to the vampiress but the other vampires protected her, leaving him unable to get close.

One vampire tackled Venstar from behind, catching him off guard. The moment he was unable to defend himself, he was killed by another vampire which attacked from the front. Horohoro was trying his best to shake off one vampire while Meene reached the vampiress. She was not physically as strong as the other vampires and she wasn't as good of a fighter either. The fight didn't last long and Meene had her pinned down, about to finish her off.

"That's quite enough." Hao said calmly.

Meene and Horohoro turned around to see what was wrong and were completely shocked at what they saw. Yoh had been caught and was trying desperately to get away, from Hao. Hao had one hand covering Yoh's mouth so that he couldn't scream while his other arm was wrapped tightly around Yoh's waist, making it so that he couldn't escape.

Yoh was trying his hardest to pull Hao's hand off his mouth but with no success, Hao was much stronger than he had acted before. Hao savored the looks of horror and anger that showed on Horohoro and Meene's faces as a slight smirk played on his lips. Horohoro's anger turned to dread when he noticed something about the smirk, fangs.

"You're one of _them_?" Horohoro whispered, just loud enough to be heard.

"That's right, Horohoro. If you don't want anything to happen to him, then don't move." Hao said with a slight chuckle.

Meene growled and ran towards Hao with her claws unsheathed, completely ignoring his warning. Hao simply rolled his eyes before looking at Yoh, who was still struggling against his hold. He slowly took his hand off of Yoh's mouth and was a little surprised that Yoh didn't scream like he was expecting him to, but he did bite his hand. Yoh glared up at him while he merely gave him a cool smile in return.

Hao tightened his grip on Yoh's waist a little and he quickly let go of his hand. The bite just barely broke through the skin and the wound started healing almost instantly, but it still surprised him. "Try something like that again, and you will regret it later." Hao whispered, waiting until his hand was healed before covering Yoh's eyes. Once Yoh couldn't see what was happening, two vampires attacked Meene from opposite sides and killed her in a single combined strike.

"You son of a-" Horohoro growled as he took a step forward.

"I though I told you to remain still. Do you want him to become one of us?" Hao asked, gently grazing his fangs over the crook of Yoh's neck.

"Stop! I won't move! So don't..." Horohoro said quickly.

After recovering from the previous attack, the vampiress walked behind Horohoro with a chain in hand. Horohoro remained stock-still as she tied a chain around him, well enough that he couldn't break out of it. Once they were sure that he couldn't escape and a few vampires had hold of him, Hao temporarily returned his attention to Yoh.

Once Hao found the right spot, he bared his fangs and sunk them deep into the skin of Yoh's neck. He smirked at the sound of Yoh's scream while the warm blood began to overwhelm his senses. Yoh gasped and tried to pull away, but Hao made sure he kept a good hold on him. He pulled back seconds before Yoh lost consciousness and fell onto the grass beneath him.

"Yoh!" Horohoro cried as he pulled harshly on the chains.

"Relax. He's not dead and he's not one of our kind either, he just passed out. He'll be fine once he wakes up." Hao said as he picked Yoh up off of the ground and started walking.

"How long have you been one of them? Did they turn you into a vampire after they took you to the castle or before that?" Horohoro asked while the vampires pulled him along.

Hao stopped walking and looked back at Horohoro, partially wondering if he as joking. Once he realized that Horohoro was serious, he started to laugh. "You still actually think that I was human?" Hao asked in disbelief. "I'm over a thousand years old, I was already a vampire since before you even met me. I'm the strongest vampire in existence and I'm the one who formed several well known shaman and vampire clans such as the Asakuras and this clan that you see before you. Earlier you said that it was unknown if the vampires had a leader, right? Well, 900 years ago, I became their king."

XxX

Me: Hm...

Ren: Lost in though?

Me: …

Ren: I'll take that as a yes.

Me …

Ren: Please review.


	8. Xx Flashback xX

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

writing

XxX

Authors note

**Shadowzamy:** Hi. I decided to make this chapter into a flashback so that those who were curious could see what happened on Hao's side. Well, that's all I can think of for now. Bye.

XxX

Hao walked through town while pondering what to do. Attending school was becoming irritating, it was like the teachers were deliberately insulting his intelligence. It was proving to be useful in some other areas though, being in school helped him learn how to act like a normal teenage boy, which made it easier to catch his prey.

Ren didn't mind school as much as he did, he found it fun to toy with his teachers. Because he was very strong and his speed would be considered inhuman, he was excused from most gym class activities. Ren wasn't exactly human either, but he was a little better at acting like it. Hao stopped for a moment when he saw Ren standing on the other side of the street. Ren walked over to him and waited until they had gone to a less populated area before speaking.

"I was told that a family is moving into town today and they'll be living on the edge of town." Ren informed.

"I heard that they've got a kid with them, he's supposed to be about 14 or 16. Want to go over to the house to see?" Hao asked with mild interest.

"Sure, once we see what he's like, we can decide who gets him." Ren replied as he started walking in the direction of the house.

The two of them arrived just as the car pulled into the driveway. The first people to exit the car were two adults, on man and one woman. Judging by the rings on their fingers and the way that they acted towards each other, it was fairly apparent that they were married. The husband called for the kid to come out and explore the new house. Soon the car door opened and a kid stepped outside, he had spiky blue hair and seemed to have a fairly up beat attitude. He looked decent but Hao could easily tell that he wasn't his type.

"You don't seem to have an interest in him, mind if I take him?" Ren asked, unable to take his eyes off of the bluenette.

"He's all yours... Hm? It looks like someone else is coming out." Hao said as he returned his attention to the car door.

The door opened and out stepped another teen that looked different from the first. He had shoulder length dark brown hair and seemed to have a bit of a carefree attitude. What was surprising to Hao was that, despite the hair difference, they looked a lot a like. The brunette followed his friend into the house and closed the door behind him.

"It doesn't look like they're related, maybe the friend moved in with them." Ren said, slightly uncertain.

"We'll come back later, for now, it's time to eat." Hao said as he walked off to a more populated area.

Ren looked a little irritated but still followed him into a nearby crowd. The two of them searched for a while until they eventually found decent prey. A man and a woman were looking for somewhere more private to get a little more... intimate. Once they had left the crowd, they headed to an old park, since the new park was build, no one ever came to the old one anymore.

Hao and Ren followed silently behind them, once they were sure that they were out of the crowd's hearing range, they attacked. Ren caught the man off guard and bit him before he even had a chance to react. The woman was horrified and tried to run away, but was cut off by Hao. Once he was done feeding, he looked at his hands, they were completely covered in blood. Ren wasn't that much different, they both kind of overdid it this time. Hao briefly considered cleaning off of the blood but decided to wipe it off later, after he went back home.

He and Ren headed back over to the house where the new family had moved to. As he walked down the street, he stopped and looked up at the highest window, for a split moment his eyes became locked with the young brunette's. The brunette looked startled by his blood soaked appearance and blinked just as Ren walked over. The brunette's expression looked more alarmed than startled now.

Hao figured that it would probably be best not to stay in the same spot. As the brunette rubbed his eyes Hao and Ren moved to another area where they could still see the brunette but he couldn't see them. Hao watched silently as the brunette closed the window and the curtains before heading to bed. Noticing that Ren was staring at him expectantly, he turned to face him.

"Looks like two new kids are moving in, we were only expecting one." Ren said while still staring at Hao.

"No matter, it will be much more amusing this way." Hao replied as his lips curved into a smirk.

"They don't look like they're related, but it will still be harder with two of them." Ren snapped.

"The harder it is the more entertaining it will be. Besides, it's not like you're going after both of them." Hao said as he crossed his arms in defiance.

"But if one of them disappears the whole family will panic." Ren growled.

"Not necessarily. You chose the blue haired one, if you take simply him then you wont have to worry about anything." Hao replied simply.

Ren paused for a moment as he considered what Hao was saying. "But if I take mine first then what will you do?" He asked suspiciously.

"You've known me for a long time, you should know by now that I don't have a problem with waiting for something I want." Hao replied calmly.

Ren stared at him for a moment, upon noticing the look in Hao's eyes he let out a sigh. "Fine with me then." Ren said as he ran off, leaving only the shadows behind.

Hao glanced back to the attic one more time before fading into the night as well. The thought of capturing the brunette filled him with a new sense of excitement that he had never experienced before. He was already beginning to feel the thrill of the hunt and it hadn't even started yet. His eyes turned red and gave off a slight glow as he thought of what was soon to come.

XxX

The next morning Hao woke up fairly early, he spent a lot of time thinking about what was going to happen at school that he didn't get much sleep. He got dressed in a white long sleeved shirt and a pair of old worn out jeans. He brushed his hair and then put in a pair of small star-shaped earrings before going downstairs. Silva was drinking a cup of coffee while reading the morning newspaper.

Hao found it kind of funny that Silva was registered as his dad when in actuality he was 900 years older than him. Silva had only been turned into a vampire one hundred years ago but he looked 34 while Hao only looked 16. Two years ago Hao transferred to the school and a year after that, Silva became the principal. The previous principal died in a car accident and since Silva seemed best fit for the job, he became the next principal.

Once Silva finished his coffee, he walked with Hao to school. When they arrived, Hao went to his first class while Silva went to the office. Hao had to resist the urge to roll his eyes as Mr Kame began the 'new student speech'. The only time when he actually payed attention was when he told them all the students name. Horohoro. Hao thought that it was a pretty weird name but before he could think more about it, Horohoro burst through the classroom door.

While Mr Kame was lecturing him, he poured a bit of glue on Horohoro's seat. It was a stupid prank that he only did to maintain his outward appearance to the other students. Pretty much everyone in the school thought that he was clever, weak and did random pranks to mess with other kids. Though, Hao did have to admit that Horohoro's expression was pretty funny when he realized that he sat in glue.

The rest of that class was pretty boring, the only thing that he really succeeded in doing was pissing off Horohoro. When it was time for lunch, he met up with Ren and told him about Horohoro. Ren told him a bit about the knew kid which was in his class. His name was Yoh and he had a laid back personality. As Hao thought about what Ren said, he noticed Horohoro was sitting next to a brunette, which was probably Yoh.

Hao walked over with a smile and asked nicely if he could sit with them. Yoh happily agreed, Horohoro was another story. Hao only had a second of silence before Horohoro started calling him just about every curse word that he knew. Yoh finally managed to calm Horohoro down, but by that time the bell had rang to signal their next class.

Hao had his next two classes with Yoh so he walked with him to class. Math was first and Hao was a little surprised when Yoh fell asleep after only ten minutes. Hao had to wake Yoh up when the bell rang to signal gym class. As they walked to the gym Yoh asked him what he did to cause Horohoro's outburst.

He smiled and started explaining what happened, he finished explaining right as they reached to gym. When they entered, the teacher told them that they were going to be playing games in teems of two today. Hao knew that Yoh heard about how he was weak and prone to illness, so he was surprised when he asked that they be in a team.

As they were doing some stretches, Hao cursed his inhuman hearing. He couldn't stop listening to the sound of Yoh's breathing and it was really distracting. He was leaning over to stretch his back when he lost focus and temporarily lost his balance. He was a little surprised when Yoh caught him by the waist, he even flinched. Yoh seemed a little suspicious when he tried to pass it off as simply being a little sore, but he didn't pry either.

They were going to play tennis, one of the few games that he could actually play. It was him and Yoh against two competitive looking girls. The girls played really well, the score was 6-9 and they just scored their final point by hitting the ball over to Yoh's side and accidentally hitting him in the head. He was about to go over see if Yoh was alright, but stopped himself upon recognizing the unmistakable scent of blood.

Other kids had gotten injured in gym class before and he wasn't phased in the slightest by it. For some reason, the smell of Yoh's blood seemed to affect him a lot more than any other. It was taking all of his self control not to feed right there. Yoh seemed to be worried when he noticed him shivering, luckily he had mistaken his trembling with excitement for trembling with fear.

"Is something wrong Hao?" Yoh asked, it was obvious by his tone that he was concerned.

"I... have hemophobia." Hao said slowly. '_Hemophobia? Well, it is about the only other thing that would explain my current behavior to him. Damn, I hope the smell dies down soon..._' Hao thought as he looked away from Yoh's direction.

One of the girls overheard him and handed Yoh a medium sized band-aid to put on his cut. Once Yoh put the band-aid on and wiped off the rest of the blood, the smell lessened a little and Hao was able to start acting like his usual self again. The rest of the day was rather boring, he was stuck with Horohoro for his final class which was pure torture in his opinion.

In all of his time at the school, he never thought class could go so slow. It seemed to take hours before the bell finally rang. His opinion of the school had changed, and not for the better. The moment he left, he went to search for his next victim. He could eat normal food, but it never sustained him for long. Since hadn't fed since yesterday, he was starving.

XxX

Ring, ring...Riiing, riiing... riiiiing, riiiii- crash! Hao opened his eyes and glared at the scattered remains of the alarm clock. The fact that he truly hated technology was no secret to the vampire kingdom. Despite that, it was also known that he was NOT a morning person. After much consideration -and many deaths- it was decided that a shattered alarm clock was better than a broken neck. Hao wasn't exactly thrilled with this decision, but he put up with it.

He gave a sigh as pushed off the blankets and slowly got out of bed. For a brief moment he considered skipping school, but he quickly pushed that thought out of mind. Despite how much he hated going to that school, there was one good thing about it, Yoh was there.

"Hao, if you don't hurry up you'll be late for school!" Silva called.

Ignoring Silva, Hao returned to his previous chain of thought. Why was Yoh any different from the other humans? Sure, the scent of his blood was a little stronger than most, but that wasn't a valid reason for him to feel so... attracted. Yes, though he didn't like to think of it that way, he did feel some kind of attraction to him.

Hao had to suppress a growl when Silva called to him again, but he was right, if he didn't hurry up, he would be late. He quickly walked over to his closet and put on the first outfit that he saw. He quickly brushed through his hair before walking downstairs. Silva looked like he was on the verge of freaking out, which was a very funny sight. As soon as he reached the living room, Silva rushed out the door. Hao sighed as he grabbed his bag and followed shortly after.

As Hao walked to the school, he started thinking of a way to figure out why Yoh felt different. He knew that he wouldn't feel attracted to Yoh if he was just a normal human. Attracted, why was it that he felt that way anyway? Did he actually care for Yoh? Or was it just a mild interest? Thinking back, he couldn't really tell. There have been a few that had caught his interest before, but none of them felt the same as what he was feeling now.

He put those thoughts out of mind as the school came into view. As he walked down the hallway, he overheard some girls talking about the three mysteries of the school. He had heard about the rumor before, but never really had an interest in it. Maybe it could be useful. If he invited Yoh to go check them out with him, he might be able to figure out what he felt for him. He figured that he'd probably have to invite a few other people though, Yoh might not agree to go if it was just the two of them.

Hao didn't pay attention to the teacher at all during class, he just watched the clock and waited until the bell finally rang. The first thing that he did after leaving the classroom was look around for those two girls he saw that morning. He found them quickly enough and asked them if they wanted to check out the three mysteries later. The girls happily agreed and then left to go eat lunch.

Once he entered the cafeteria, he walked over to the table that Ren and Horohoro were sitting at. Shortly after he sat down, Yoh came over. Yoh didn't seem to be paying much attention attention to the conversation at hand, not that he had expected him to. Yoh didn't seem like the type of person who was interested in those kinds of conversations. The only time when Yoh did gain interest was when he mentioned the three mysteries of the school.

Unfortunately, the bell rang before Yoh had the chance to ask more about it. Hao watched the clock and waited for the bell to ring as Yoh slept soundly through the entire class. The next two classes had been switched due to a huge mess in the gym. He listened to the teacher ramble on and on about something, which would probably be useful in their next test, while waiting patiently for the bell to ring.

When it was finally time for gym class, he changed in to his gym clothes and grabbed a book. Today they were playing basketball, one of the games that he couldn't play. The last time he played the game, he was sick, no one knew that though. He ended up passing out during the middle of the game because of that. The teacher thought the he had passed out from exerting himself too much and he was excused from playing basket ball again.

Now, he simply read a book while everyone else played the game. He really liked reading horror stories, they gave him so many ideas of what he could do later. As the murder scene came up, he closed the book. It wouldn't be good if got too many ideas at the moment. As he returned his attention to the game, he found himself paying attention to one student in particular, Yoh.

Yoh wasn't that good of a player, but he wasn't that bad either. The more he watched the game, the more he found himself watching Yoh. His eyes trailed down the base of his neck, down his back, and all the way down to his... Hao shook his head when he realized what he had been doing. Had he been checking Yoh out? They looked almost exactly alike, wouldn't that be the slightest bit narcissistic? Then again, he wasn't really the type to care about such things.

The thing that was on his mind the most right now was whether or not he was interested in Yoh like that, or if it had just been a coincidence. The bell rang before he could finish his thought and he slowly walked over to the changing room. As he took off his shirt, he briefly wondered why he even changed in the first place if he wasn't going to play the game.

"Hey Hao, earlier you mentioned something about mysteries of the school. What was that about?" Yoh asked curiously.

"Ah, that. There's three strange rumors surrounding the school currently. I was going to ask if you and Horohoro wanted to stay back a little late to investigate them with Ren and I. A few girls will be coming too." Hao explained.

"Sure. See you guys after class then." Yoh replied as the bell rang.

Hao walked over to his class while Yoh headed over to his. When he reached the classroom he briefly considered skipping class. The only reason why he chose not to, was because he didn't want to get detention today. He completely ignored what the teacher was saying and started thinking about the rumors. The were boring in his opinion, but at least they served as a decent excuse.

The teacher let class out a little early, much to everyone's surprise. She said something about being late for something and then walked off. Since he didn't have anything better to do, he decided to wait in the gym where they all said they were going to meet. The two girls were already there and Horohoro showed up shortly after. Horohoro decided to tell a few stories to pass the time while they waited, and impress the girls.

In all of Hao's 1000 years of living, he had never wanted kill someone so badly as he did right now. Horohoro was annoying the hell out of him and he was lucky, very lucky, that Ren had picked him. If it had been anyone else, he would be dead by now. Hao thought about leaving, but before he had the chance to actually consider that, Yoh and Ren walked in.

"I'm glad you two are finally here. I swear if I had to hear him tell another story to those girls I would've gone insane." Hao said while glaring in Horohoro's direction.

"Ha ha, sorry we're late. What are the rumors that we're going to look in to?" Yoh asked curiously.

"The first rumor is the ghost haunting the girls changing room, the second is the screaming classroom, and the third is the vampire appears on the roof every night after dark." Hao explained.

Hao began explaining what they were going to do as everyone pulled out their flashlights. It wasn't too dark out yet, but it would be soon. Hao had to suppress a laugh when he saw that the two girls had brought cross necklaces in case the vampire rumor was true. One of them was having some difficulty putting it on and he was happy to help. Crosses, garlic and holy water only worked on very low class vampires. He found it amusing that humans hadn't figured that out yet.

Once everyone was ready, they headed over to the girl's changing room, where the first rumor was. The rumor was that ghost haunted it, the rumor started when some girls heard voices when no one was talking. The rumor was completely ridiculous in his opinion. Normal people couldn't see ghosts, let alone hear them. It might be possible that the place was haunted, but the girls wouldn't know if it was.

Hao was a little surprised when he noticed Yoh take one look around and seeming uninterested when there was nothing there. Could Yoh actually see ghosts? Hao thought about it, it was entirely possible. When he had first mentioned ghosts, he looked a little disbelieving, almost like he didn't think that people could hear them. Only someone who could personally see spirits or knew someone who could would know that.

After a few minutes of searching, Horohoro called that he found something. He showed that one of the lockers was a little crooked, when he when he opened it, he found that inside was a secret door. The girls were furious at the thought of who might have been in there earlier and began plotting on how to catch the person. Hao merely shrugged and headed on to the next rumor.

The rumor was called 'the screaming classroom'. It started at Mr Kame's class, one students heard screaming coming from inside and they assumed that someone was being tortured. They all went inside and sat down while waiting for the screaming to start. Horohoro was getting ready to leave when one of the girls heard this faint crying sound. As they looked around for the source of the noise, one of the girls let out a squeak.

A blush spread across everyone's faces as they saw what the girl had been looking at. Mr Kame was making out with Mrs Shika and they looked like they were going to do it. Hao simply rolled his eyes, seeing something like that was nothing new to him. He had seen a lot of things like that and worse during his thousand years of living. Mr Kame showed them all out before closing and locking the door behind them.

"...Well I have to say I wasn't expecting that." Horohoro muttered.

As they walked to the roof for the next rumor, Hao's eyes focused on Yoh momentarily. He had to admit, Yoh did look cute when he was blushing. Ren opened the door to the roof and narrowed his eyes at a strange figure standing near the edge. When they got closer, they all recognized the person as Silva. Silva explained that one of his favorite things when he was younger was participating in plays and that he was currently acting out the story of Dracula.

Having discovered all of the secrets behind the rumors, everyone started heading home. As Hao walked back to his house, he thought about what Yoh's reaction would be when Horohoro went missing. Jun had told him that she was going to take Horohoro tonight as a surprise for Ren. He wondered if Yoh would be sad or scared, maybe both. For some reason, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered how nice it would be, to see Yoh trembling.

XxX

The next morning, Hao woke up early for once. For some reason he was in a really good mood. The pleasant mood stayed with him even as he walked to school. His mood returned to normal when the teacher started talking. '_Oh well, it was nice while it lasted._' Hao thought as he turned his attention to the clock. The minutes ticked by slowly but the bell came faster that he was expecting. The classed had been rearranged again so that there were a few other classes before lunch.

The only class that Hao paid attention to was the one he had with Yoh. Yoh was asleep for most of the class, like usual. When the bell rang to signal lunch, he walked over to him. He tried telling him that it was time for lunch, but Yoh remained happily in dreamland. He moved his hand to try poking him, but Yoh just grabbed his had and started snuggling with it.

Hao sighed, Yoh was being difficult to wake up today. He tried taking back his hand, but Yoh bit it when he moved. He didn't bite hard, but it was enough to catch his attention. He tried thinking of what other ways to wake him up, when Yoh started to suck on one of his fingers. A small shiver ran down his spine as he looked at Yoh with surprise. He wasn't sure what Yoh was dreaming about and he didn't really care. He was more focused on reality and how what Yoh was doing was starting to aroused him.

He didn't want Yoh to stop, but he didn't want to wait until the teacher came back either. He sighed and tugged harshly on his hand. Yoh banged his head on the desk and woke up from the impact, he looked a little confused from being woken up so suddenly. Hao quickly changed back to his usual expression and muttered something along the lines of 'you're hopeless' before walking to the cafeteria. Hao ate quickly and then headed over to the principal's office. He walked into the room glared at Silva.

"Why did you call?" Hao asked calmly.

"I've noticed that you've been acting a little... different, these past few days and I wanted to know if you're going to do anything drastic soon." Silva said while trying not to show his worry.

"Define drastic." Hao replied.

"Creating a massacre. Setting the school on fire. Those kinds of things." Silva explained.

"Hm. Does kidnapping a student count?" Hao asked curiously.

"Not really, I've seen you do worse. Which student are you planning on taking?" Silva asked quietly.

"Asakura Yoh. When he and Horohoro first moved here, Ren and I decided to take whichever one of them interested us." Hao replied simply.

"Yoh is a good kid. You don't plan on doing anything bad to him, do you?" Silva looked hopeful for a moment, before letting out a sigh. "You've never been kind to your victims before, I suppose it's a bit unrealistic to think that you won't do anything this time, right?"

Hao smirked and then turned to leave. "You answered your own question, Silva." Hao said as he walked out the door.

By the time the conversation with Silva had ended, lunch break was over and it was time for gym class. Today they were going to play dodge ball. The rules were simple, ten balls, 25 students, and everyone trying to get each other hit with a ball. There had been no accidents for this game and he was allowed to play. The game didn't last long, soon he found himself facing off against Yoh as the final people in the game. He threw his first ball and waited until Yoh jumped out of the way before throwing the second. It was an easy win, in his opinion.

Once everyone had finished getting changed, the bell rang to signal the end of school. He went back to his locker to get an umbrella, one of the other students had warned him that it was raining. As he walked out the door, he caught sight of Yoh, who was sitting on one of the steps and getting soaked. He walked over to where Yoh was sitting and moved the umbrella over him also.

"How come your not headed home like the rest of them?" Hao asked, his tone could almost be labeled as concern.

"My mom doesn't want me to go home alone and Ren is busy." Yoh replied simply.

"Is it because of all the recent disappearances?" Hao asked calmly.

"Yes and no. Horohoro is one of the people who went missing. My mom is worried that I might be next." Yoh replied with a sigh.

'_Hm, this could end up working in my favor._' Hao thought before returning his attention to Yoh. "Then how about this? My dad is worried about me because I'm not exactly the strongest kid, he's probably right to be, and your mom's worried because your friend went missing. How about we take turns going to each others houses? Since it would be dangerous for either of us to go back to our own home alone, we could spend the night at the others house. We would switch every other day and that way neither of us would be alone." Hao suggested.

"Ok. Fine with me." Yoh said with a carefree smile.

Hao followed closely behind Yoh as they walked back to his house. As Yoh stepped through the doorway, he was tackled by his mother in a crushing hug. It took her a moment to notice Hao's presence, when she did, she gave him a friendly hello before turning back to Yoh. Yoh took a seat and explained Hao's proposition to her, once he had finished explaining, Keiko looked absolutely thrilled.

She quickly told him that he had to leave to visit Horohoro's parents and apologized about not being able to take him with. She turned to Hao and started chatting with him until she felt that he was trustworthy. Once the conversation was over, she gave Yoh a kiss on the forehead and ran out the door. The two of them smiled and waved goodbye as she drove off.

Yoh looked back at Hao and offered to give him a tour of the house. Hao set the umbrella down and followed him as he walked. Yoh warned him that his parents room was off limits first and it was decided, after noticing how messy Horohoro's room was, that Hao would stay in his room. Once the tour was over, the two of them ate and then headed upstairs to tell scary stories. Yoh didn't seem to know very many legends, but Hao knew a lot.

"Hey, Yoh. Do you believe in such things as ghosts, demons, and monsters?" Hao asked with a friendly smile.

"Yea, I do." Yoh looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing. "Hao, do you promise not to think that I'm crazy?" Yoh asked cautiously.

'_If Yoh knew who he was asking, he would be laughing right now. I have been called insane on many occasions, I doubt what he has to say will make me think that he is crazy._' Hao thought as he let out a small laugh.

"No, but I won't start avoiding you if I think that you are." Hao said teasingly.

"Well, truth is that I'm as shaman." Yoh said sheepishly.

'_So, I was right about him being able to see spirits._' Hao thought.

"You were worried that I'd overreact to something like that? Personally I'm not a shaman, but I can see spirits. Was Horohoro a shaman too?" Hao asked with a curious expression.

"No..." Yoh replied hesitantly.

"Oh, he seemed a little weird to me so I thought that he might be-" Hao began.

"...He's a werewolf." Yoh finished.

'_I have to admit, I was not expecting that._' Hao thought as his eyes widened. He took a step back and looked at Yoh with complete surprise. Horohoro was a what? How on earth had he hidden himself so well? Sure, he did smell a little like a werewolf, but Hao didn't expect him to actually be one. After he calmed down, Yoh explained that was why Horohoro had been staying with them.

He talked about the war going on with vampires and werewolves, one that had been for the past 10,000 years. He explained that Horohoro was the head she-wolf's brother and that they wanted him away from the fighting in case something happened to happen to her. Since Horohoro had gone missing, Keiko had to fly back to Hokkaido to tell them all of what she learned for the few days that she was here. Shaman's were usually neutral in fights, except when one side has a special link to a strong shaman clan.

After the story was over, Hao stared into space while trying to sort a few things out. While Hao was thinking, Yoh got things ready for them to go to sleep, it was really late. Hao apologized and asked to leave the room, he explained that he hadn't called Silva yet. Yoh merely shrugged and crawled into bed while Hao walked into the living room to call Silva.

"Hello? Hao, Is that you?" Silva asked sleepily.

"Yes, it's me. I just thought I should give you a warning, I'm changing plans a bit, be prepared for things to get a bit hectic." Hao said, he hung up before Silva had the chance to ask why. The next person he called was Ren, the phone rang three times before he picked up.

"Hey Ren, you're never going to guess what I learned." Hao said with a smirk.

"What?" Red asked irritably.

"Horohoro's a werewolf _and_ he's the queen's brother." Hao replied, simply.

"...Whaaat!?" Ren yelled.

"And Yoh's a shaman who's family is helping the werewolves win the war." Hao added.

"What do you intend to do?" Ren asked, after regaining his calm.

"I'm making a few changes to our original plan. You still get to have Horohoro but I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little. Have Yoh and I caught by a hunting group tomorrow, Yoh thinks I'm weak and have hemophobia, so it won't be surprising to him if I'm not able to fight well. Jun was the one that caught Horohoro for you and I know that she's been curious about his scent.

Have Jun question him about it, and if he refuses to tell, say you'll kill both of us, Horohoro should admit it then. Let one of the werewolf spies _accidentally_ overhear the conversation. Then it won't be strange for them that we know he's the werewolf prince. I'm pretty sure that you can guess what I'm planning after that, so I don't really see the need for any further explanation." Hao explained.

"I can guess. As long as I still get Horohoro, I'm fine with it, King Hao." Ren said before hanging up.

Once he got off the phone, he walked back upstairs. Yoh was listening to his music while completely unaware of his surroundings. Hao went over to his bed and closed his eyes. A little bit later, Yoh removed his headphones and went to bed. Hao laid awake for the next hour before he realized that he was too excited to go to sleep. He could tell by the sound of Yoh's slow breathing that he was in a very deep sleep already.

He got up from his bed and quietly walked over to where Yoh was sleeping. '_Was that really arousal that I felt earlier? Well, I guess there's one way to find out._' Hao thought as he crawled on top of Yoh. Yoh squirmed a little at the change in pressure, but stayed asleep. Hao smirked as he slid one of his hands up Yoh's shirt, enjoying the slight moan that Yoh gave.

He traced a line down Yoh's stomach before he peeled back Yoh's shirt and let his eyes wander across his physique. Yoh's skin was somewhat pale and he had a fairly slender body. He didn't have much in the line of muscle but there was some there. His hair draped onto the sheets as he leaned closer to Yoh. He began sucking on Yoh's neck, still being careful not to wake him.

'_Hm, his reactions _are_ arousing me, but he's still asleep. I wonder what it would be like if he was awake? I suppose I'll find out later, It would be bad if he woke up now_**.**' Hao thought as he reluctantly pulled away. He pulled Yoh's shirt back down and carefully sat up. It was only then that he remembered the other problem, he wanted to feed. He hadn't fed for a while and getting himself so... excited, only made his hunger worse.

He knew that he had to wait, he would get a chance soon enough, but that didn't help lessen his huger. He wanted Yoh, and now he knew, he wanted him in more ways than one. Hao began to remember that incident two days ago at school. Yoh had gotten injured and he had to restrain himself from biting him at the smell of his blood. He didn't usually react like that, he almost wasn't able to think of an excuse in time. The mere thought of a vampire having hemophobia was ironic, to say the least. The entire kingdom would be laughing for the next century if they heard that it was his excuse.

Yoh turned over in his sleep, reminding Hao that he was still there. Hao sighed, he didn't want to get up, but he knew that if he didn't feed soon, then he probably wouldn't be able to control his desires. He reluctantly got off the him and walked out of the room. He left the house and began wandering around, searching for his next victim. His eyes caught sight of movement about 50ft to the south east, a woman was heading home from a late work day...perfect.

XxX

Hao slowly opened his eyes and looked around for a clock. He couldn't find one, so he decided to go downstairs. Yoh was still asleep, but he had a feeling that he'd wake up soon. When he walked into the kitchen the first thing he did was look for a clock. He found one on the wall above the oven, the time read 9:45. School started in fifteen minutes.

He decided to make breakfast and then wake Yoh up if he still wasn't awake by then. As he finished making breakfast, Yoh came down stairs. Yoh stood at the doorway with his arms crossed and waited until he finished setting down the plates. Once everything was finished being set, he turned to face Yoh.

"Hey, Hao." Yoh greeted.

"Morning, Yoh." Hao said as he took a step away from the table.

"Are you gay?" Yoh asked suddenly.

'_What?_' Hao thought as he stumbled back from the shock of the question. "What makes you ask that?" Hao asked as he tried to regain his balance.

Yoh pulled the collar of his shirt down slightly so that a small hickey could be seen on the side of his neck. Hao blushed and found himself unable to respond. '_I didn't think that I left a mark..._'

"I don't care if you are and I won't think any differently of you, but please don't do anything to me while I'm asleep." Yoh said as he sat down to eat.

"Ok..." Hao said before taking a bite of his eggs.

They resumed normal conversation as though the previous conversation had never happened while they finished eating. Hao was a little surprised that Yoh was so relaxed, he knew that Yoh was carefree, but he didn't think that he would be so... forgiving. He highly doubted that Yoh would forgive him for what he was intending to do later though. He wondered how Yoh would react, when he learned that he was the vampire king.

They put their plates in the sink before heading out the door. The bell rang as they walked through the front door and they ended up arriving to each of their classes five minutes late. Hao did have to admit, class was a lot quieter without Horohoro. As the teacher was rambling on about something not that important, principal Silva's voice came through on the intercom.

He informed that three students had been found dead that morning and advised all other students to travel in pairs of two or more until the killer was caught. The teacher tried to continue teaching class normally, but by that point the students were too freaked out to listen to what she had to say. When the lunch bell rang, Hao sat by Ren while Yoh walked off to go eat somewhere else.

"Why so moody?" Hao asked in a mild curiosity.

"I want to see him." Ren replied simply.

"You will get to soon." Hao said before walking over to his next class.

The rest of the day seemed to go by pretty quickly, gym class was the only class that he actually remembered something about. He recalled running track and being second to slowest runner while Yoh was somewhere in the middle. When school was over and the two of them were heading home, Hao realized how crowded it was in the streets and suggested that they take a shortcut through the forest.

Hao began talking about how much he loathed their gym class teacher as they walked. It was a good way the pass the time and Yoh seemed to think that the way he talked was kinda funny. He began to imitate the teacher's tone of voice as a way to help prove his point. Yoh laughed as he started quoting the teacher, after all, some of the quotes were pretty amusing.

As they walked out of the park, Hao recognized the smell of blood, the hunting party was nearby. He and froze at the sight before them. There was a tall vampire feeding on a small kid, he could tell that the kid was already dead though. The vampire was a member of a hunting party, which meant that they were here to take them. Hao acted scared at the sight of blood while Yoh appeared to be at a loss of what to do.

Soon the rest of the hunting party came out of the shadows to show that he and Yoh were outnumbered. He pulled Yoh back right before one of the vampires lunged at him. Sure, he wanted Yoh and himself to get caught, but he didn't want it to seem like he did. He put up a good fight against one of the vampires while Yoh was doing a good job of fighting against two.

Having grown a bit tired of playing, Hao let one of the vampires catch him. He pretended to fight against the hold while the vampire threatened to bite him. He was a little touched that Yoh stopped fighting after hearing the threat, he didn't think that Yoh cared so much about him. One of the other vampires knocked Yoh out while he was distracted and the vampire which was holing Hao tried to chock him.

Hao tried his hardest to resist rolling his eyes. Letting only the Tao's and a few vampires know who he was, was starting to get annoying. He figured that he should probably take a nap though, he didn't want it to seem strange that he wasn't passing out from lack of oxygen. After he fell asleep, the vampires carried the two of them to their old castle. They left both of them in the hands of Jun before returning to hunt.

Jun grabbed each of them by the wrist and started dragging them towards an empty room. She threw them both inside and locked the door behind them. As she walked over to Horohoro's room, she mumbled a bit about how annoying the size of the castle was. When she finally reached Horohoro's room, she moved out of the way to avoid being hit by a plate.

She started off with small talk before getting to the point. Horohoro refused to say anything at first, but he became far more compliant once she threatened to kill Hao and Yoh. Everything had gone exactly like Hao said it would. She expected things to be a lot harder then they actually were. Once she left the room, she destroyed the listening device. If everything continued to go as Hao planned, the werewolves would try to rescue them tomorrow.

XxX (End of flashback)

Me: Ok, that chapter was a bit longer than I expected.

Ren: No kidding.

Me: Please review


	9. The Other Castle

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

writing

XxX

Hao's words still echoed through his head like a single voice calling from within a abandoned cave. '_You still actually think that I was human? I'm over a thousand years old, I was already a vampire since before you even met me. 900 years ago, I became their king._' Horohoro never was fond of Hao, he even hated him at first, but then he kinda got used to him, given another week and they might have even become friends. He never expected Hao to bee one of _them_.

Hao was devious, hemophobic, weak, a pain in the ass, smart, and he was human... That's what Horohoro had thought anyway. The fact that Hao was actually the strongest and most feared vampire, the vampire king, was -to saw the least- shocking to him. Hao seemed much stronger now that he wasn't pretending to be human anymore. Horohoro wondered how long Hao had been planning this. Was it from the start, or just a random idea that came later?

The vampiress was the only vampire holding on to him right now, but she was all that was necessary at the moment. Horohoro knew that he couldn't break out of the chains and all that he could do was follow Hao. They weren't going back to the castle, probably because the Pirika and the other werewolves knew about it now. Who knew how long it would be before Pirika tried storming the castle to get them back.

Eventually they reached an old looking warehouse, it didn't look like it was big enough to store much though. Once they went in, Horohoro saw that the walls were lined up with a bunch of weapons containing pure silver, the only metal that can weaken a werewolf. Despite the fact that the warehouse was filled with many weapons and other useful items, he wasn't sure why they were there.

The answer became clear when Hao said some sort of incantation which caused a door to appear on the ground in front of him. Hao went through the door first and the vampiress followed after him, pulling Horohoro with her. They walked through a long and complex maze, Horohoro was sure the he would've ended up trapped for years if he had wandered in on his own. They turned another corner and went up a staircase which led into an old forest.

After walking a little further, they reached small village with a medieval Japaneses castle at the center and a path which led elsewhere. As they walked through the village, Horohoro noticed that everyone inside was a vampire, there were even vampire kids running around. When they reached the fork in the road, Hao took the path which led to the Japanese castle while the vampiress took him with her towards the other direction.

Horohoro was worried about Yoh. Hao clearly had something planned for him and it probably wasn't going to be good. They continued walking down the path until they had left the one village and had entered another. The village that they were now in was a small Chinese village with a castle at the edge of the village. They reached the castle in little time at all and soon the vampiress was pulling him along through the many empty hallways.

She stopped at a violet colored door and slowly opened it. Inside looked like a traditional Chinese style bedroom, but with a coffin laying next to the bed. The vampiress closed and locked the door behind her before slowly undoing the chains which bound him once the last of the chains were off she smiled and walked over to the coffin.

"Dear little brother, wake up. I brought you your friend, he's been through a lot so you might want to explain a few things to him." The vampiress said as she walked over to the coffin.

"Thanks Jun." Horohoro recognized that voice. Why didn't he think of it before? If Hao was a vampire then it would only be natural that he would be one too.

Hororhoro turned to face the cheerful vampiress. "Why didn't you say that you were Ren's older sister?"

Jun smiled at him and gave a small giggle. "You never asked."

XxX

Yoh groaned as he tried and failed to open his eyes, his head hurt like hell and his neck was the same. He slowly reached up and ran a finger over the two small holes in his neck. They had healed considerably since the time they were made, but they still hurt. His mind was in turmoil. Hao was a vampire. Hao had bitten him. Horohoro had been caught. There were so many thoughts going through his head that be could barely focus.

Most of those thoughts disappeared however, when he heard a barely audible click of a lock and the creak of an opening door. He finally managed to open his eyes and glanced at the one who entered the room. '_Speak of the devil and he shall appear._' Yoh thought as Hao swiftly shut the door behind him. He remained silent as Hao walked over to the edge of the bed.

"Well, looks like you're finally awake." Hao said with a pleasant smile.

Yoh stared at Hao for ten long minutes before sitting up. The questions that had been plaguing his mind before had returned with twice as much force, although he wasn't sure what to ask first. When he tried opening his mouth to speak, he found his throat dry. It took him a few tries before he was finally able to mutter one barely audible word. "...Why?"

"You're going to have to be a little more specific than that, Yoh." Hao replied simply.

Yoh's eye twitched in irritation. "Why did you lie to me? Why did you take Horohoro? Was it all just an act? Who are you? What do you want, Hao?" Yoh demanded.

"So many questions, so many answers, yet I doubt that any of them are what you want to hear." Hao said as he took as seat on the bed, right next to Yoh. "I'm a vampire, in case that wasn't obvious enough by now. Do you really that's something that I could have told you when we first met? As for Horohoro, I didn't take him. Ren's sister, Jun, was the one who took him. I am the vampire king, not some weak human. So, yes, it was all an act."

"T-The vampire king?" Yoh eyes widened as he muttered those words, whether it was from shock or horror, he couldn't tell.

"That's right." Hao replied.

"So, it really was a lie. Was it all just a game to you? I thought you were my friend!" Yoh yelled, desperately trying to keep his tears from falling.

Yoh winced as he was suddenly pinned against the the mattress with a hand tightened almost painfully around his neck. The hold wasn't strong enough to choke, but he knew that could easily change. When he looked up, he saw Hao's eyes flash an unmistakable crimson. He shivered. It had only lasted a moment, but it was long enough for him to notice. He had somehow managed to piss off the king of vampires. **Not** a good sign.

"I never said I was your friend." Hao said coolly.

'_...What? Why would that make him so upset? He doesn't seem like he would care about that sort of thing, would he?_' Yoh thought as the hold on his neck lessened.

A friendly smile formed on Hao's lips, sending a shiver of dread down Yoh's spine. "I tried to correct you on that while we were still stuck in that room, but those werewolves came before I had the chance. I never had an interest in becoming your friend, although, I was interested in getting closer to you. It puzzles me, but for some reason I'm attracted to you. When I bit you earlier, it was more like I was marking you. The wound will fade, but my scent will never leave." Hao said casually.

'_He says it like he's talking about the weather..._' Yoh thought bitterly.

Hao got up and walked back over to the door. "Oh, I almost forgot." He turned and looked back at Yoh with the same ominous smile. "I intend to _fully_ mark you later, once I don't have to worry about you passing out." Hao said, almost like an afterthought, as he walked out the door.

Yoh's face paled, he didn't even want to think about what Hao meant by that. He tried getting out of bed, but found his right ankle was chained to the bed frame. '_Looks like Hao didn't want to take any chances of me getting out of here._' Yoh thought as he gave the chain a light tug. He looked back at the door and sighed. '_I hope Horohoro is in a better situation than me..._'

XxX

Me: Sorry about that wait. Here's the next chapter.

Yoh: Please review.


	10. Planning

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

writing

XxX

A few voices from outside the door woke Yoh from his sleep. It didn't sound like the voice was speaking to him, but to someone else. His eyes widened slightly when he heard Horohoro's name come up and he quickly tried to focus to hear more of the conversation. By the sounds of things, Horohoro was stuck with Ren and had gotten into a fight with him, leaving the two of them scratched and bruised, but not seriously hurt.

Yoh was relieved to hear that aside from the damage to Horohoro's ego, which he had no doubt received after loosing to Ren, it seemed hike he was fine. The two people continued conversing after that, but nothing that they said interested him any further. Now the vampires were just talking about how hot Ren's sister was and the conversation was becoming annoying.

In order to preserve his sanity, Yoh decided to block out the noise, he had better things to think of anyway. Once the vampires had left, Yoh began looking around for something, anything he could use to take off the chain attacked to his ankle. There was no key hole, which led him to believe that there must be some sort of trick to opening it. Since he didn't know the trick, he'd have to figure out some other way to take it off.

Tugging at the chain only resulted in a bruised ankle. The chain itself was actually attached to the bed-frame so that he couldn't untie it and there was nothing close enough for him to use to break the chain. He could try summoning a spirit, but there was a barrier around the room to prevent any ghosts from entering. Unfortunately, the chain also seemed to drain his furryoku, so he couldn't use that either.

Yoh let out a sigh as he fell back onto the mattress. Right now, all he could do was sense the presences in the building and meditate, but neither of those would help much. Although, he supposed that sensing all the presences in the building would help him later. Knowing the basic security layout could help him escape, if he ever got the chance.

Hesitantly, Yoh closed his eyes and tried locating every presence within a 300ft radius. He continued doing this for the next hour to learn the guard rotation schedule. It was tiring, he'd never maintained the state for more then ten minutes before, but it was necessary. When he was done, he was surprised at how many guards he had observed. Although he knew that there would be guards, he never expected the amount which he found.

'_14 guards along the south hall, 16 guards by the north corridor, 15 guards to the east, and 15 guards to the west. There were three guards in every room along each of those halls too, making a total of 21 in the rooms. 81 total vampires guarding the area around my room... and 19 rats scurrying in the vents to prevent escape that way. Hao really want's to make sure that I can't leave._' Yoh thought before feeling the two nearly healed holes in his neck.

'_...And it seems like it'll only be another day before I'm healed and Hao intends to fully mark me, whatever that means_... _I wonder if the werewolves will realize that Vanstar, Meene, and Lilirara won't be coming back. No, they'll notice. Pirika is probably going nuts right now, being unable to leave and get Horohoro herself. I'm sure that everything will work out._' Yoh thought.

XxX

"What's taking them so long?" Pirika snapped as she paced back and forth in her den.

"Miss, perhaps they were chased and forced to take a longer rout back to camp to ensure that they wouldn't he followed. Venstar, Meene, and Lilirara all would have rather died then let anything happen to Yoh or your brother. If taking a longer rout would be safer, then they would have taken it. I'm sure they'll be back by tomorrow." Jeanne said calmly.

"...You might be right. However, there's no route that would take more than a day to get here. If they're not here by noon tomorrow, you, Amidamaru, Lyserg, Mikihisa, and I will head out to see what happened. No objections?" Pirika stated.

"No objections. If they're not back by noon tomorrow, we will all gladly go with you." Jeanne said before walking out of the den.

After leaving Pirika's den, Jeanne headed over to Amidamaru, Lyserg, and Mikihisa's homes to give them Pirika's order. Amidamaru took a bit of talking to before agreeing that the back up plan was indeed necessary. Mikihisa, on the other hand, agreed without a single question and proceeded to get packed just in case Venstar's team didn't return. As expected, Lyserg was a bit more critical of the idea and seemed to share her thoughts about the matter.

"The queen _herself_ is going on this mission? I know that it's Yoh and her brother that were caught, but that's all the more reason for her _not_ to go. If anything happens to Horohoro, then she'll be the last one capable of ruling the werewolves. She should send someone else." Lyserg said.

"I know how you feel, but the queen has made up her mind. It's no use trying to change it now, all it would achieve would be making her more desperate. I didn't tell her my honest opinion because I thought she might try and run off without any plan and end up getting herself killed if I had." Jeanne sighed.

"And what would be your honest opinion?" Lyserg asked worriedly.

"I fear that Venstar's team was killed." Jeanne said sadly.

"Why would you think that? It's entirely possible that they really are just late from taking a different route." Lyserg said quickly.

"Possible, but not likely. While protecting three civilians, it would have been more dangerous than any difficult mission. Had they been caught, they would have been outnumbered and their greatest priority would be to keep the civilians alive. They would have had to fight while protecting Yoh and that human boy, Horohoro could fend for himself. If even one if one of the civilians were caught, it would cause a brief moment of confusion. That moment would be all it would take to wipe out Venstar's team, unfortunately." Jeanne explained.

"But, if you think that Venstar's team was wiped out, the shouldn't we hurry? Yoh, Horohoro, and the other kid might be in danger." Lyserg said worriedly.

"Lyserg," Jeanne said seriously, "If that were the case, they'd already be dead. The only chance we have that they're still alive is the off chance that they have some use for the three of them. Though I hate to say it, we're just going to have to wish that we get lucky and they'll be alive." Jeanne replied.

"I understand. I'll get ready. If you're right about this, then I'll see everyone tomorrow at noon."

XxX

Lyserg: Wait, I'm in this story too?

Me: Yup.

Lyserg: Why'd you wait until now to put me in?

Me: I forgot about you.

Lyserg: Do you... dislike me for some reason?

Me: I don't think you want to know ^^

Lyserg: ...Ok then.

Me: Please review.


	11. The Maze

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

XxX

A small knock on Yoh's door woke him from his sleep early the next morning. Glancing down at the chain still firmly attached to his ankle, Yoh let out a sigh. He had hoped that it was just a dream, that he'd have woken up and found that he was late for school yet again with Horohoro already halfway to the school building. Unfortunately, the little chain connecting him to the bed was a very big reminder of reality.

The knock came once more before the door slowly creaked open. His eyes lazily glanced over to the door, not surprised when he saw Hao enter. He watched quietly as Hao walked over to the edge of the bed, scooting a bit back as Hao took a seat on the edge of the mattress. He slowly reached up and felt the area of his neck where the two holes once were, swallowing his nervousness when he felt that they had fully healed.

"Why are you here?" Yoh asked, sounding slightly braver than he was.

"I told you I was going to mark you fully when I didn't have to worry about you passing out. Well, now that the wound has healed, you won't pass out so easily." Hao stated.

"What is a full mark?" Yoh asked, trying to hide his curiosity.

Hao smirked as he reached down and tapped the chain around Yoh's ankle, causing it to unlock. "You'll find out later. I'll explain a few things on the way though." Hao said with a smile.

"On the way?" Yoh said questioningly.

Hao didn't give a reply, but merely grabbed his hand and started walking towards the door. Yoh nearly tripped as he was suddenly pulled off the bed and had to walk at a faster pace to keep up with Hao. They went past so many twists and turns that Yoh wasn't sure if they were up or down anymore. The biggest change of scenery that he could see was when it went from grey castle walls to an outdoor garden.

The garden was huge. Nature as far as he could see, fenced in by an assortment of trees. There were so many flowers as well as a ton of other plant life. The air collected these many different scents and spread them around, bringing forth a calming, yet enticing scent. There were several birds flying around, filling the sky with dozens of colors, almost like a rainbow of avians.

A number of other critters were scattered around, but there was one main thing that stood out... A huge hedge maze. The only animals that went near the strange maze were the crows. The leaves appeared to be a bit out of season, being shades of red and orange when they should have been a bright green. The walls were as high as a house, making it impossible to see over the top. The flowers growing by the maze were all either black roses or red snapdragons.

"Hao... Why are we here?" Yoh asked nervously.

"Well, it's kind of a tradition. A ritual, more like. You go in the maze and I wait ten minutes before going in after you. If I catch you before you reach the end, I'm going to fully mark you. If that happens, I'll also tell you about the full mark. However, if you get to the end before I catch you, the exit will lead you to the forest where you can try to escape." Hao explained.

"If I loose, I get caught and If you loose, I escape... Doesn't that sound a bit risky for both of us?" Yoh asked.

"That's the point. It won't work if there isn't something on the line for both of us. That way, neither one of us wants to lose." Hao replied simply.

"...Did my ten minutes already start?" Yoh asked curiously.

"No, it starts the moment you enter. Oh, and I've got one piece of advice for you before you go. Stay out of the center of the maze. If you do enter, I will catch you." Hao said with a smirk.

"Why would you tell me that?" Yoh asked as he walked through the entrance.

"It's a rule. I have to tell you. Now, good luck." Hao called as the hedge started to close the gap. "You'll need it."

XxX

Pirika tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the others to show up. She knew that she was four hours early, but she had expected at least one of them to be there by now. Luckily, Amidamaru showed up before she had the chance to consider leaving without anyone. He slowly walked over to her, followed by Jeanne, Lyserg, and Mikihisa.

"You're early, Pirika-san." Amidamaru commented.

"Good, you're all here. I'm not waiting until noon. The longer I wait, the longer those three stay at risk. We're leaving now." Pirika ordered.

The four of them glanced at each other uncertainly before slowly nodding in agreement and following Pirika out of camp. After they reached the edge of the territory, they started following Amidmaru to to the enemy castle. Amidamau and Jeanne were both running a little slower from having to carry someone, but they still managed to keep a good run.

A wave of tension filled the air as they crossed into vampire territory. Every bird seemed to be tracking their movements and the trees only seemed to slow them down. The sky was covered in dark clouds, thunder roared as they came near a clearing. Blood. Everyone's eyes widened as that unmistakable scent reached their noses. Quickly, they burst into the clearing, fearing yet needing to know what they would find.

A wave of sadness filled Jeanne when she saw the bodies of Venstar and Meene lying in the field before them. Mikihisa called that he had found Lilirara dead a moment later. Among the three of them, it appeared as though Lilirara had died first, her scent has the most faded among them. Pirika and Lyserg worked on identifying all the blood while Mikihisa, Jeanne and Amidamaru buried Lilirara, Venstar, and Meene.

"Um, Mikihisa, come over here." Pirika said quietly.

"What is it?" Mikihisa asked worriedly, glancing down at the drops of blood on the ground before returning his gaze to Pirika.

"The blood, it's Yoh's. It carries his scent." Pirika said regretfully.

"No. He's not-?" Mikihisa began.

"No. It's not a fatal amount. There isn't the scent of vampire blood mixed in, meaning that he wasn't turned either, but he was bitten. He's probably out of it, judging by the amount of blood loss. The vampire might not feed again until Yoh has healed, which means that we still have some time to save him." Lyserg explained.

"The castle is just ahead." Amidamaru stated. "Lets hurry."

Lyserg and Mikihisa both hopped on Amidamaru's back before everyone took off in the direction of the castle. The castle was only a few minutes away from their position, so they arrived in little time at all. Pirika and Amidamaru got ready to ram down the door while Jeanne and Lyserg attempted to calm them down. One thing Lyserg found strange was that despite the fact that they were all arguing in front of the door, no one had come out of the castle to attack. While Jeanne was still talking to Pirika and Amidamaru, Lyserg walked over to the door and knocked.

"I'm coming~" A voice called.

Everyone glanced at one another in confusion for a second before looking at Lyserg and then to the door.

"Why did you knock?" Pirika asked.

"The place seemed empty and I wanted to know if someone was here." Lyserg replied.

A moment later, a woman dressed in Chinese style clothing opened the door.

"Oh." She said while pointing at Amidamaru. "You're that werewolf from before. I have to say, I didn't expect you to come to this not-so-little castle." Jun said cheerfully.

"You're a vampire? Then where's my brother? Where are the others?" Pirika snapped.

"The werewolf queen herself came? That's unexpected. Oh, right, your brother. Horohoro is currently at my house playing with my little brother. As for the others... Yoh is resting at my house, he passed out for some reason, and the other guy is adjusting to his new life as a vampire." Jun replied.

"You changed that human into a vampire?" Lyserg asked slowly.

"Not me personally, someone else did. I feel sorry for him though, the poor dear is terrified of blood. It's certainly going to be a hassle to prevent him from starving." Jun said with a sigh.

"Show us where they all are." Jeanne growled.

"I'm afraid I can't. That would be directly disobeying an order from the king." Jun said apologetically.

"You have a king?"Amidamaru gasped.

"Is it really_ that_ surprising? Yes, we have a king. Anyone who disobeys him is killed, so I have no intention of going against his orders." Jun said.

"Then bring them here." Lyserg said.

"I can't do that either, but I can call the main castle to see if someone else will bring them over." Jun suggested as she walked back into the castle. "You can come in while you wait, I'm the only one here."

Amidamaru entered the castle first and began looking around for any traps while Jun walked over to the phone. Once Amidamaru was sure that there were no traps and no one else inside the castle, he motioned everyone else to come in. They all took a seat on a rather large couch as Jun reentered the living room while dialing a number on a cellphone.

"It's already noon? Wow, I didn't expect it to be this late... Ah! I think someone answered."

XxX

Me: Hm...

Hao: Still thinking about the next chapter?

Me: Yup. Still trying to decide if I like how I did it so far or if I need to change it.

Hao: Decide soon, will you? The chapter is almost done and I'm getting impatient. *Creates fireball in hand*

Me: Alright, I'll update soon.

Hao: Please review.


	12. Fully Marked

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

XxX

Yoh sighed as he ran into what seemed like the hundredth dead end. He was beginning to wonder if the maze went on forever, he had been stuck in the maze for three hours already and still no sign of the exit. Luckily, there had been no sign of Hao either. The only thing he had seen in the maze were leaves, leaves, and walls of leaves. He hadn't come across anything other then dead ends and crossroads yet.

Honestly, he was a bit surprised. He had actually expected Hao to catch up with him a lot sooner. Vampires and werewolves had one main thing in common, their heightened senses. He thought that Hao would have caught his scent ages ago. Perhaps, now that he stopped to consider it, the flower's scent was keeping Hao from tracking him that way. It could be possible.

As Yoh turned the next corner, he found himself standing before three possible paths. He had been to a lot of crossroads like this one, he usually ended up picking the wrong path and getting caught in a dead end. This time, however, it was a little different. This was the first time that he had seen a crow standing in the middle of the crossroad. He had a feeling that this crossroad would lead to the exit, the middle of the maze, or another dead end.

The crow was probably the reason for this feeling, seeing as how he hadn't run into any animals before this. Not that he cared, all he really wanted to do was get to the exit, which could be behind one of the paths. The only problem with choosing his path was knowing that once he chose he wouldn't be able to turn back. Whenever he chose a path in a crossroad, the way behind him would close leaving only the path ahead to take.

Yoh closed his eyes and took a deep breath, surprised at the different scents coming from each path. When he focused, he was quickly able to tell which scent came from which path. The path on the right smelled like the rest of the maze, like leaves with a faint flower scent. The middle path smelled like fresh grass and flowers, mainly roses for some reason. The left path smelled like pine needles and another faint floral scent.

He figured that the right one was probably the dead end, leaving the other two to pick from. Either could be the exit. The entrance to the maze smelled strongly of flowers and grass, perhaps the exit did too. The forest had pine trees, which would carry their scent, but the edges of the maze were also close to the trees, meaning that it could just lead him deeper in.

After making his decision, Yoh slowly went through the entrance to the middle path. The scent of flowers seemed more likely to lead to an open space than pine needles and he personally preferred the floral scent anyway. As he walked down the path, he noticed the flower scent begin to grow stronger. A cool breeze caressed his skin as he came closer to an opening, where ever this path led to, he was about to find out.

When he entered the clearing, he was greeted with a strange sight. Lined around the edges of the circular wall were rows of black roses and in front of them were rows of white roses. Standing on the tops of the wall were dozens of crows, each staring down at him with an expression that seemed like pity. As the wall closed in behind him, a shiver of dread made it's way up Yoh's spine. This was not the exit, nor a dead end, this was the middle of the maze.

"Looks like I win, Yoh." Hao chuckled as he walked into the clearing.

"You haven't caught me yet." Yoh said as his eyes spotted one last opening and he made a dash for it.

"Really?"

Yoh gasped as, with one swift movement, he was lying with his back on the grassy floor and Hao straddling his hips. Hao smirked as he slowly leaned over him, placing each hand on either side of Yoh's head and trapping him between. Yoh tried using his hands to push Hao off, but couldn't even make him budge. As he had learned before, in terms of strength, he was greatly outmatched... but the position wasn't helping that much either.

"There, I caught you. Now, it's time for me to fully mark you." Hao said simply.

"What is a full mark?" Yoh asked hesitantly.

"Oh, right. I said I was going to tell you, didn't I?" Hao whispered as he kissed the side of Yoh's neck.

"Well, I'm basically marking you as my mate while changing you into one of my kind... A vampire." Hao said nonchalantly.

"What?" Yoh shrieked.

Yoh's eyes widened in horror as he desperately tried fighting to free himself. He didn't care that Hao was stronger or that he was at a clear disadvantage in position, all he cared about was getting free. His struggles, however, did nothing more than irritate the vampire. After ten minutes, Hao had finally had enough. He grabbed both of Yoh's wrists in one hand and slammed them on the floor above the young shaman's head, making Yoh flinch from the impact.

"The more you struggle, the harder it is for me to hold back. At this rate, I might end up killing you on accident." Hao snapped.

Yoh froze at those words, shuddering as he looked up at Hao's crimson eyes.

"Look, I don't want to kill you, quite the opposite actually. However, humans have such small and fragile lifespans. Being around you now is like a fire shaman walking on thin ice, one wrong step and the ice will break. I'm only using about three percent of my strength to hold you." Hao picked up a rock with his other hand and turned it to dust to prove his point.

"If you become a vampire, that lifespan will grow much longer and it won't snap so easily. Vampires aren't as bad as people think. We don't have to kill our victims, it's a choice. I chose not to kill you when I first bit you, didn't I? You'll see. We can be nice if we want to." Hao said soothingly.

Yoh relaxed slightly after hearing that, but his eyes still held some fear and worry.

"What about being your mate, Hao? Before, I thought of you as a friend, never more than that." Yoh said.

"If I had the time, I'd have tried to pursue you differently. It's kind of funny, actually. In all of my thousand years, I don't think I've ever been this impatient before. I've never reacted to another like this before." Hao whispered.

Yoh stayed quiet as he tried sorting through his thoughts. Hao was acting a bit strange, even when they were friends he never acted like this. It seemed like Hao was going to mark him regardless of what he wanted, but it also seemed like Hao wanted him to agree to it for some reason. He wasn't sure what to do. The Hao right now seemed more like his friend than the vampire king.

Eventually, Yoh let out a sigh. It was going to happen anyway, so he might as well try to make it work out. Perhaps he could find some way to convince Hao to end this war easier as a vampire. Who knew, it might be possible. Well, he'd have more time to think about that later. For now, he supposed that there was no point in struggling. He hesitantly closed his eyes and turned his head slightly to the side, allowing easier access to his neck.

Hao smiled as he leaned in and placed a small kiss on the fragile skin. He let go of Yoh's wrist's and instead, slipped each hand into one of Yoh's palms. He could feel Yoh's quick heartbeats and could tell how scared he was, yet Yoh still allowed him. Hao paused a moment before slowly sinking his fangs into the skin of Yoh's neck. He could hear Yoh gasp as he tried to hold back a cry of pain.

He pulled back when he felt that Yoh was starting to get dizzy from blood loss and then proceeded to get up and walk over to the flowers. He picked a petal from each flower before returning to Yoh. Once he was straddling Yoh's hips once again, he placed both petals in his mouth before tearing a small cut on his wrist. He wasn't fond of the taste of his own blood, but it was the way he was supposed to change Yoh, so he couldn't really object.

He paused a brief moment before connecting their lips. He was sure that the kiss probably would have been a lot better had he not been trying to get Yoh to swallow blood for the first time, but the kiss wasn't that bad either. He pulled back when he felt Yoh swallow the last of the it. Yoh glanced up at him once, confusion the only thing he could identify in his gaze, before passing out.

"Looks like it worked." Hao muttered as he got to his feet.

He carefully reached down and picked Yoh up bridal style before slowly making his way out of the maze. The concept of the full mark was still confusing to him, especially how it differed from normally changing someone. It also forced the person changed to pass out afterward. Personally, he found the passing out part a bit annoying, but it didn't really matter now. Yoh was now a vampire and his mate. Yoh was now fully his... The biggest problem now was how to keep it a secret from Yoh and the werewolves what the _true_ meaning of the full mark was.

XxX

Yoh: I'm a vampire now?

Me: Yup. You mad?

Yoh: *eyes turn red*

Me: ...I'll take that as a yes.

Hao: Please review.


	13. Phone Call

_Disclaimer: I do not own shaman king._

'_thoughts_'

"talk"

XxX

Hao blinked in surprise as the clock struck twelve. He hadn't expected it to be noon by the time he got back. Although, he wasn't sure if he was surprised that it took so long, or that it didn't take as long as he'd thought. Well, now that it was done, he'd have to find another place for Yoh. If he kept Yoh at his castle, Yoh would be stuck in that room for the next few days.

It would take a few days before all the physical changes of a vampire would be fully apparent but, unfortunately, Hao couldn't keep Yoh there till all of the changes were done. He knew that the werewolves would be coming any day now and he needed to make preparations. It wouldn't take long for him to finish everything, but he wanted someone to watch over Yoh till then. Ren was the perfect one to do it too.

He was thankful that Ren's castle wasn't that far. He disliked staying in the crowded streets for long, too many vampires in one place. One thing he liked about Ren's castle was that no one but Ren and his sister lived there, meaning that Hao could pretty much walk through the entire castle without anyone disturbing him. When he reached Ren's room, he stood before the door and waited. He didn't bother knocking, both Ren and Horohoro would be able to sense that he was there.

"What brings you to my room, Hao?" Ren asked politely, despite looking less than thrilled that he was there.

"Him," Hao said, glancing down at Yoh before returning his gaze to Ren, "He's one of our kind now."

"You changed him?" Horohoro asked.

"That's right." Hao said as he laid Yoh down on a nearby futon.

"How _dare_ you?" Horohoro snapped. "He's not like you vampires. He'd rather starve than kill someone for their blood! Why would change him just to have him die? By turning him into one of your kind, you'll be responsible for killing him!"

"Do _not _put me on the same level as you, Horokeu." Hao said coolly.

"And what do you mean by that?" Horohoro growled.

"Please. I know all about you... and dear Damuko." Hao said, smirking as Horohoro's face turned a ghostly white at the mention of the name.

"..."

"You loved her. She was the first person to ever care about you, your first friend, but you liked her more than a friend and she felt the same. She was human, yet you told her who you were, what you were. She didn't care. You wanted her to be together with you forever, so you turned her into one of your kind, a werewolf."

"She didn't mind as long as she could be with you, but she didn't cope that well with all of the changes, mainly your family. She offended the leader of the pack, your father, on accident and was sentenced to a death match with young Jeanne as punishment. You didn't even try to help her, you just watched as she was killed by that little white wolf. So, don't you _dare_ lecture me about my choice. Unlike you, I won't sit back and let my mate be killed before my eyes." Hao said.

"...Ren, take this thing off." Horohoro said quietly, tugging at the chain around his neck half halfheartedly.

Ren glanced at Horohoro in surprise before looking over at Hao, who nodded in approval. Since the moment Horohoro had arrived, he had been loud or fighting constantly. This was the first time he had seen Horohoro so quiet. Ren slowly took off the chain around Horohoro, still unsure if it was a good idea. The moment he heard the chain click unlocked, Horohoro lunged at Hao and push him up against the nearest wall.

"You are _very _lucky that I am werewolf prince. No matter how much I may dislike it, I can't protect Yoh when he's one of your kind. So, you had better keep him safe." Horohoro growled. "However, if I find out that Yoh gets killed because you changed him, I will _personally_ hunt you down."

"If that happens, be my guest." Hao said calmly.

Horohoro glared at Hao for a moment before reluctantly letting go and walking over to where Yoh was laying.

"Yoh, I've known you long enough to tell when you're asleep or faking it. When did you wake up?" Horohoro asked.

For a moment, it looked like Yoh really was asleep and Horohoro was talking to an unconscious vampire. Then, Yoh opened his eyes. He looked like he would have rather been asleep, yet he still sat up and glanced at Horohoro.

"...You're yelling snapped me out of it." Yoh said quietly.

"Oh, so you heard all that then." Horohoro replied.

Yoh nodded.

A moment of odd silence filled the room. Ren kept glancing from Hao back to Hororhoro, still surprised after hearing the story, yet curious as to how Hao knew about it. The moment didn't last long, but before anyone spoke, the ringing of a phone filled the room. Hao slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. He checked the caller ID, told everyone to be quiet, and switched the call to speakerphone before accepting the call.

"Hello, Jun."

-Hi, Hao. Are you doing alright dear? How are you adjusting?-

"_Adjusting? What does she mean by that?_" Horohoro whispered.

"_Jun is probably talking to the werewolves right now. Hao told her that if she met them, she was supposed to tell them that I had you and that Hao was a hemophobic human recently turned into a vampire. Don't ask me what he's planning, I don't know that._" Ren whispered.

"I'm alright. I've pretty much been ignored since I came, your brother has been the only one to talk to me." Hao replied.

-Oh, I see. Is he there? I'd love it if I could talk to him.-

"I'm here, Jun." Ren said, after receiving the phone from Hao.

-That great, I'm hoping that you might be able to help me with something.-

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Ren asked.

-I was hoping that you might be able to sneak the three of them over here...-

"But Jun, we both could die if he finds out about it." Ren said quietly.

-Don't worry. They said that they'll protect us from him if we do it.-

"...Alright. But we're leaving the moment we get there. Who knows how long it will take before he realizes that we're gone."

-See you soon, little brother.-

Once the phone call had ended, Ren threw the phone back to Hao.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't tell them right away that you're the vampire king." Horohoro snapped.

"The reason why I'm going with you is to get rid of Jeanne and her followers, the X-laws." Hao said simply.

"And that would make me want to help you, _why_?" Horohoro asked.

"Are you forgetting who killed Damuko? My reasons for wanting them gone may differ from yours. However, it would benefit you too. From what I've heard, Marco is going to try killing your sister soon enough. He intends to have Jeanne take over once Pirika is gone." Hao replied.

"What!? Grr... Alright, I won't say anything for now. When we get back to camp, I'm going to check on what you said. If you're lying, I'll tell the entire camp who you are." Horohoro warned.

"I guess that's good enough for now." Hao said with a smirk.

XxX

Me: Hey, Ren, can I ask you something?

Ren: What is it?

Me: What type of hair-gel do you use?

Ren: It's natural.

Me: Really? Can I poke it?

Ren: Of course not!

Me: *mumbles darkly*...

Ren: Please review.


End file.
